When you first look at the screenshots for Kiwi Studios’ Space Hawk, it looks like another one of those side-scrolling shoot-em-ups, akin to something like R-Type; however, it’s actually rather different indeed.

It’s still a side-scrolling affair, and there’s still a lot of shooting involved, but rather than controlling the big ship known as the Space Hawk you’re actually escorting it through the level with the use of a much smaller spacecraft. Meteors and Alien craft are doing all they can to destroy the Space Hawk and it’s your job to use your on board lasers to take them out before any damage is done.

Your craft is controlled by way of an on-screen thumbstick, which the developers are touting as being very responsive. I have to agree, it is one of the more responsive of it’s kind that I’ve seen. On the other hand (quite literally), your other commands are carried out with three buttons on the right side of the screen. There’s a shield activation button, a yellow mining laser and a red attacking laser. The mining laser is used to blast any incoming meteors to smithereens, while the red will take out alien craft — the latter must be recharged by collecting little glowing red particles on your way through the level, and the same goes for recharging the shield.

Unfortunately, there’s only a single level to keep you occupied — this is being labelled the “first in the Space Hawk series”, so expect more in the future. It’s a little disappointing after seeing so many huge games on the App Store at this price point, but for $0.99, I really wouldn’t complain. What may be an issue though, is the lack of either local or online leaderboards — something that greatly reduces the game’s replayability, as this feature is really a mainstay in iPhone games these days. Despite the game offering up a cumulative score in the top-left hand corner of the screen, as well as a very creative ranking system that labels you anything from a “Space Janitor” to a “Spacehawk Commander” — not having a leaderboard to compare with previous scores is a bit of an oversight.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to work for, though, as completing the third difficulty, “hard”, will unlock the game’s “Nightmare Mode” — which is quite literally what it says it is. It’ll take a massive amount of practice to even complete the level on this difficulty, let alone be ranked as the Spacehawk Commander with the two female aliens by his side.

The best part about Space Hawk, however, is probably the way it looks and sounds: a futuristic techno soundtrack mixed with robotic voices and fully destructible 3D models deliver a great experience. Although this does mean that the iPhone 3G isn’t supported this time around. If you’re an owner of the iPhone 4 or 3Gs, though, Space Hawk is most definitely one worth checking out — even if the lack of leaderboards may be a little frustrating at times. A very commendable effort from Kiwi Studios, with a thumbs up from me!

Hailing from Scandinavia, the warriors and explorers known as the Vikings took to the seas in their longships – settling all over Europe and North Africa. Whether or not they ever became the ghostly, skeletal figures that they’re often depicted as, we’ll never know. But, for the sake of Mehware’s latest iPhone game, Viking Funeral, that’s exactly how they appear.

Viking Funeral’s main game mechanic is borrowed from those “flick-to-shoot” titles such as Paper Toss – however, you’re now firing canon balls and flaming barrels from a catapult, and having those undead, beastly Vikings as your targets means that they’ll soon fight back.

There’s two game modes on offer, the first (and most extensive) being the Battle Mode. This mode puts you in a defensive, coastal position. With the catapult loaded, the huge ships arrive – arrows rain down upon from the onboard archers, while huge, armoured warriors charge ashore. You’ll have to dodge or destroy these guys in order to preserve health and survive as long as possible. Taking out all archers on a ship will sink it into the depths of the ocean, but is soon replaced with another.

The second mode, Target Mode, offers the same gameplay in short, sharp bursts – selecting from 30, 60 or 90 second sessions, where the idea is to fire at and connect with as many moving targets as you can in the given time. Points are awarded via coins (as is the case in Battle Mode), with leaderboards and achievements being delivered via Open Feint.

However, simply scoring highly won’t be enough to top the aforementioned leaderboards. At the end of each round, in both game modes, you enter the Tavern. A place to gamble those coins by betting all or half of your shiny discs and selecting one of two wooden chests. If it’s full of gold when it opens, great, you’ve just improved your score. On the other hand, if it’s empty, your once respectable attainment could now be null and void – continuing until you either submit your score or run out of money. This poses a slight problem for any leaderboard fanatics out there, as topping the charts is no longer solely in the hands of skill and practice – a new player could just as easily beat your score with a stroke of good luck.

That doesn’t bother me personally, as I’m more concerned with my own fun than beating other’s scores into the ground, but I do have a couple of concerns with Viking Funeral that I feel I should mention. Firstly, I found that the tilt-to-move, swipe-to-fire controls often contradicted each other. Swiping the screen caused my iPhone to move slightly, also moving my catapult – not too helpful when accuracy is required. Secondly, I noticed a frequent drop in framerate (on my 3Gs) when moving quickly from left to right, though I’d believe that could be fixed with a few minor tweaks in a future update.

All in all, it’s a fun little game that builds upon and adds heavily to a style of gameplay that we know works well on these touchscreen devices, and it’s hard to complain about the tiny faults found in a game at this price point. With a nice soundtrack that puts you into the right era and the ability to sink ships by catapulting flaming barrels, who wouldn’t have fun? Besides, Vikings are just cool anyway, right?

If you play a lot of video games, you’re probably a little wary when it comes to those that are based upon movies – on top of that, if I had to choose one movie that would make a bad video game, there’s every possibility I’d have chosen one from the 70s about a big shark. However, in the case of Jaws on the iPhone, it’s actually quite a treat. Let me tell you a little more.

This game takes the top-down view that’s been tried and proven on this platform and puts you in charge of rescuing helpless swimmers from the clutches of Jaws’ jaws. Whilst the first stage simply requires you to swipe at the flailing figures in the ocean and guide them to shore, the game introduces several new ideas as you progress. For example, the open water levels require you to guide rescue boats of varying sizes by drawing a line on the touch screen. You then swipe the swimmers towards the boat and continue to guide the boat off-screen. Dock levels are much the same, with the rescue being completed when you guide the full boats into landing bays.

The varying levels really keep things fresh through all 10 stages in the game, while also revolving around the same gameplay mechanics to ensure familiarity and a nice learning curve. What really sets this game apart, though, it the way it puts across the feeling that you’re the one floating out in the sea, hoping not to be mistaken for a seal. The frantic nature of the game mixes with the classic “da dun, da dun” of the Jaws original soundtrack, cueing an imminent shark attack – and if the swimmers on-screen start to panic, you’d better panic too, as it’ll only attract the Great White to attack sooner.

Even once they’re aboard a vessel, you can’t deem them safe – if you misguide one boat into another, both will be sunk and everybody on board will be back in the drink with that dorsal fin ever circling. For those that are rescued, you’ll be awarded stars dependent on your performance. If you don’t save enough people, the mission is failed. Just scrape through and you’ll pass, but will only be awarded a single star – which won’t be enough if you want to unlock all stages.

This adds a little to the replayability by returning to previous levels for more stars, as do OpenFeint scoreboards and achievements. But, on the other hand, it would have been nice to see a few more included as once you get into it there’s every chance you’ll finish them all rather quickly. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, as there’s a real treat to be had in the last level, but I shan’t spoil it – and do bear in mind that at a price of just $0.99, you’ll be sure get your money’s worth by just playing through the once.

It’s a nice little game, which takes the tension that was felt in the original movie (those sequels never happened, right?) and puts it upon the player. Achieving the full three stars on each level will take some working on, but simply finishing the game itself can be done in a short space of time. Which is refreshing to see in a way: with all the “endless” iPhone games hitting the App Store of late, it’s nice to get that feeling of “completion” for a change – and you’ll have a whole lot of fun getting there.

Star Wars featured one during Revenge of the Sith, while episode 76 of South Park delivered the somewhat more obscene “It” – now, it’s the iPhone’s turn to get one, by which I am of course referring to a “monowheel” or “monocycle.” The game is Monorace from Craneball Studios, putting you into the seat of one of these single-wheeled driving machines. Let’s see how it fares.

Basically, what we have here is a rather fast paced side-scrolling game in which your monowheel will continually be moving from left to right. Your job is to ensure that it gets to the finishing line, avoiding all manner of obstacles from deadly spikes to the edge of the screen itself (if it catches up with you, you’re done). This is all performed by the simple means of a single input. Due to a monowheel’s nature, it’s capable of driving both on the floor and ceiling – simply tapping the lower half of the screen will cause the wheel to jump, alternating between the two.

In order to progress through the game and unlock more stages, you’ll need to collect stars. These are awarded based on the time it takes you to complete a level. Before starting, the game shows you three different times, awarding you one, two or three stars respectively. Your finishing time can be manipulated not only by getting to the end as fast as possible, but also by collecting stopwatches along the way which decrease your overall time score. There’s also a nice little mechanic which means the timer counts faster if you’re lagging behind on the left half of the screen but slows if you’re on the right half.

In addition to hazardous objects such as pits, spikes and the landscape itself, other things to take into consideration are the speed up/slow down arrow sections, as well as a sort of physics mechanic. This means that driving uphill will slow you down, and that’s obviously not a good thing at all. You can, of course, counter this by simply jumping up these sections, but be sure to mind your head.

As well as an endless mode with high-score based gameplay and OpenFeint’s online leaderboards, there are two career modes to play through: “beginner” and “racer.” The latter mode raises the bar as far as difficulty is concerned. These both offer up forty stages each, meaning there’s a lot of replayabilty in there if you plan to finish them all. That said, some levels will offer a mass of replayabilty themselves as you repeatedly crash and watch your monowheel explodeing into a rather spectacular ball of fire.

However, despite the explosions looking rather spectacular, as do the menu screens and character designs (of which there are three), the actual levels in the game are a little lacklustre in terms of visuals. The landscapes are all made up of a rather dull brown or grey texture; though it obviously doesn’t affect the gameplay, it would have been nice to see the same effort put into this aspect as was put into the design of the characters and visual ephemera.

It shouldn’t put you off, though, as there’s definitely a lot of fun to be had with Monorace. It’s one of those games that (in the later stages) will frustrate you to the point where you’re about to throw you’re iPhone out the window – while at the same time you’re unable to put it down, attempting the level “one more time” in your determination to get to the end. If you can’t finish it, though, the character’s witty and humorous remarks will do just enough to keep you smiling. It’s certainly a whole lot of game for it’s $0.99 price point and shouldn’t be overlooked when your’e browsing the App Store.

Do people still play board games? I know, it all sound a little 1980s, right? So, how about a board game on you iPhone? That’s exactly what Magic Cube have done with their latest title Slime Race, a rather charming little game that’s based upon the traditional Korean board game known as “Yut”.

As with many board games, the basic idea is that you roll a die (with only five sides in this case) in order to move your pieces, or “Slimes”, with the aim to make them reach the goal before your opponents. Each player can have up to five slimes on their team, which are moved one at a time – land on the red arrows in order to take a shortcut, roll a 4 or 5 to be granted another roll, land on your own Slimes to combine them into a single piece and finally, land on an opponent’s Slime to send them all the way back to the start, receiving another roll at the same time.

That’s hardly the greatest description of how the actual gameplay works, but it’s certainly in line with the instructions you’ll receive in-game. Upon loading up the game for the first time, I read them through – leaving me nothing but confused. However, once you start up a game, it’s all very much self-explanatory and you’ll know exactly what you’re doing after just two or three rolls of the die.

There are three different maps to play on, each using the same gameplay but a different layout. Which, to be fair, isn’t a lot – and while I feel there should be more, the maps really don’t make an awful lot of difference. You wouldn’t expect to buy a real board game with three different boards, I guess. That said, you also wouldn’t expect to buy a board game with a slightly unresponsive control system either, I’ve often found my self tapping a Slime three or four times before it finally decides to start moving.

Playing Slime Race alone will unfortunately soon wear thin. With some fairly some average AI the game will hang you the win more often than not. However, the multiplayer mode offers something that may interest you a little more. If you can handle the thought of passing your precious iPhone into the hands of another, up to four players can take turns playing on one device. It’s a nice idea that really makes for something social, and is particularly nice to see on this platform – especially as playing games on your phone when others are around is mostly deemed as an “unsociable” thing to do.

At the end of the day, though, this isn’t a game for everybody. It’s quite obviously aimed at the more casual gamers out there, but without a friend or two around to play with it’ll soon become repetitious. It’s bright and colorful styling works very well on the iPhone’s screen and I love the encouragement to play with others. However, the style of gameplay would really be best described as an acquired taste.

Remember when you first took ownership of your iPhone or iPod Touch? No doubt you just sat and admired it for a moment or two upon first removing it from it’s minimalistic packaging. Then you began to use the super responsive touch screen and I bet you’d have killed for an excuse to touch it over and over, sometimes several times a second — if so, Detonation could be the excuse you were looking for.

Here, you’ll be tapping frantically in order to detonate a series of speedy bombs. They’re heading for the core of a planet and if they reach their destination, the aforementioned planet will soon be turned into nothing more than a meteor shower in the skies of a distant land.

You'll wish you could skip these parts.

During the story mode, the exact reasoning for this occurrence is made crystal clear and you’ll hear no end of details about “the wave” — especially since these narrative sections cannot be skipped the first time around. Not usually an issue for me; backstories are a good thing. However, in this case it’s just unnecessary. I don’t need an explanation, just let me get on with the game!

The complaints end there, though. The story mode will take you through several planets, one by one — each time introducing new types of bombs and sometimes even a friendly power-up or two. Bombs vary in color and style, some travel faster, some explode with a greater velocity, some do more damage and bombs of the armoured type will require a few taps to detonate (but my is it worth it when they finally go). Power ups range from extra health to a decrease in bomb speed. But, if you let them reach that fiery hole, they’ll have the opposite effect — proving for a very tricky time indeed.

As you detonate the bombs, causing a score multiplying chain reaction of explosions, panic, mayhem and chaos ensue, particularly in the later stages and waves. There’s a really nice difficulty curve implemented to help ease you into it all, though, with the more difficult planets sometimes requiring many attempts before you get that perfect run to save the day. Sure, it’s frustrating at times, but you’ll soon be back to try again, which offers a boat load of replayability.

That’s something that continues far beyond the story mode by way of two “endless modes” known as Time Attack and Score Attack, with the primary objective of scoring as highly as possible. All modes offer an online leaderboard for each planet via OpenFeint’s tried and tested platform (achievement’s are also included, of course).

The only other issue I’ve noticed on my 3GS is an occasional drop in framerate when things really start to get hectic. It’s totally worth putting up with, though, as the the sheer amount of fun you’re having will keep framerate issues in the very back of your mind.

To sum it all up, let me put it like this: for somebody that’s regularly reviewing games on their iPhone, they tend to adopt a kind of play, review and delete policy on their devices. Detonate, on the other hand, will be firmly implanted within my iPhone’s memory chip for a long while yet. As well as on my own memory chip (my brain… I think it’s called) — I just cannot get enough.

“Splodes” venture out during the greyscale hours of nightfall. Touch them and they’ll pop, unleashing a burst of colour and melody, in turn setting about the explosion of others around them in a chain reaction that can turn a rather dull night into a bright and colourful day.

That’s the theory behind these cute and fuzzy creatures; let’s take a look at how it plays out. The basis of gameplay is quite simple: a number of splodes crawl onto your screen and you tap it once, sending nearby splodes flying outwards. They explode, causing the same effect upon any surrounding splodes. The basic idea is that you trigger the longest chain of popped splodes possible, though your goal varies slightly between the two game modes on offer.

The first is challenge mode: an increasing number of splodes appears in each stage; popping the target number or more will complete the level and move you on to the next. In the Score Attack mode, you’ve got five touches to pop enough splodes to reach a checkpoint. Achieve that number and you’re five touches are restored. Clearing 75% of splodes on-screen at any one time will earn “an extra life,” so to speak.

It’s a totally original and so amazingly simple that just about anybody can pick it up and play, but just how exciting can the “touch once and observe the outcome” game mechanic be? Well, I’d liken it to ten pin bowling. The simple action of rolling the ball is just the start; the real excitement starts as you watch the pins topple over. It’s much the same feeling that you get whilst playing Splodes, except the outcome is a much more pleasant experience than the events at your local bowling alley.

I’m a big fan of this “black and white, but with a little colour” styling that’s become increasingly popular in recent times and I have to say it looks beautiful on the screen of my iPhone 3Gs. It’s also a universal app, so I’d love to see it on an iPad as well.

Your experiences with Splode won’t just look pretty, though. The way in which the creatures expel a harmony of musical notes in synchronization with their popping really is another unique part in this title, while the ambient sounds of rushing wind that lie between make for a very relaxing experience. Something that I’m very glad to see is fast becoming an option when you pick up a game these days.

Ultimately, Spode is a great looking and beautiful sounding game that offers a truly unique style of gameplay — it’s really unlike anything else I’ve played before. It uses its graphical style and music generation mechanics to the height of their possibilities; it really reaches out and pulls you into the fantastically simple gameplay. Quick thinking and frantic tapping have been replaced by making an insightful decision and taking in the outcome.

If you’re on your lunch break in the middle of a hard day’s work, plug in your headphones and spend five minutes with this game. You’ll likely come away feeling relaxed and refreshed. It’s great to see people developing games that can really affect your state of mind, just as they should.

You are Blake, a young chap who’s late archaeologist Grandfather has left him in a rather sticky situation. Since your grandfather spent his career ransacking artifacts from various ancient civilizations, your family has been put under a curse – it seems there’s only one way to put things right. To lift the curse you must head back to these tombs and return the artifacts to their rightful place of rest.

The game starts with Blake receiving a letter from his Dad: “If you have received this letter, I have failed my quest,” it reads. Further inspection reveals that not only must the age-old items be returned, but the job must be done before an upcoming celestial alignment. Guess you’d better get to it! The storyline progresses by way of a little text and a few still images between each tomb — it’s just enough to keep things ticking along.

The gameplay takes hints from various tomb or dungeon crawling games of the past, with a host of puzzles to solve in order to move through each tomb and place every item back on its pedestal. The puzzles are highly varied and range from simply pushing blocks out of your way to positioning harps onto matching colored platforms and playing each one at the right time. Some are inventory based such as finding and using keys, while others will see you drawing shapes on the touchscreen. Each tomb will keep you guessing, but don’t hang around too long; the celestial alignment is ever drawing nearer – the perfect premise for a time limit.

Should you run out of time, which is very likely on the first play through, you’ll still be able to complete the level. However, Blake will remain “entombed” and you’ll have to start over. There are extra artifacts, as well as glowing scarabs that can be collected throughout a level; they’ll increase your score, though collecting them all within the time limit won’t be easy.

The top-down camera angle allows for great use of the iPhone’s pinch-to-zoom functionality; should you need to step-back and take in the bigger picture, the option is there. Other controls consist of tapping a position to move Blake, swiping blocks to slide them in that direction and touching items to pick them up. It works, but can be a little unresponsive or inaccurate at times – my hard-set gaming ways left me thinking that an on-screen joystick or D-pad may have been a better option.

One thing I feel must be mentioned is that throughout my time with the game I came across a few glitches where Blake would get stuck. In one case, a block disappeared, leaving a level restart as the only option. A little frustrating, but I’d be surprised if the developers don’t fix these issues with a small update.

Despite these minor issues, though, Entombed is certainly one of the better games on the App Store. The graphics, lighting and sounds really set the scene, with the variation and originality in puzzles making for a real fun time. If there was to be one real criticism, it’d be the small number of levels. For the price, however, I’d certainly have no problem buying “Entombed 2” for more of the same. This is definitely one to check out and I look forward to seeing what Fun Guy Media can come up with in the future.

FoodBreaker is one of those block-breaking games — the ones where you must slide a paddle in order to rebound a ball back and forth, with the aim to clear all blocks on the screen and complete the level. As the name implies, the blocks are replaced with food this time around. Various skins are available in the options screen, turning the blocks into all kinds of edible goodies that range from ice creams to beef burgers, or for those on a diet they’ve even included the standard blocks. Each one is nicely rendered using bright and colorful designs that are very appealing to the eye.

The game features 100 stages, which are unlocked in numerical order as you complete that which came before it. Once unlocked, you can return any time to increase your high score. All the usual features are included, those blocks that require extra hits to break, multipliers for hitting consecutive blocks and, of course, a range of power-ups, both good and bad. The controls are simple, you touch the on-screen paddle and slide your finger from left to right in order to move it. The developers have very kindly given a huge margin as far as where you can touch, meaning there’ll be none of those frustrating mishaps just because you missed the paddle slightly.

So far, so good; with FoodBreaker ticking all the boxes you’d expect from a game in this genre. The trouble, however, is that apart from ticking those boxes this title doesn’t do a whole lot more. Sure, they’ve replaced the paddle with a dinner plate and the blocks with various items of fast food and confectionary, there’s even an eye-catching star-trail that gives the balls a pretty, comet-like tail — but, in terms of gameplay, there’s really nothing here that hasn’t been in these games since their conception. It’s also a shame that there are no online high scoreboards — with a game of this nature, high scores are what will keep you coming back for more. Returning in order to beat your own high scores can be fun for a little while, but online leaderboards are fast becoming commonplace across all gaming platforms and would’ve been a perfect fit in this particular title.

Put simply, FoodBreaker does exactly what you’d expect from this type of game, it does it well and looks great (it also makes me a little hungry). Nonetheless, its repetitive nature and unoriginal gameplay left me collecting the negative power-ups intentionally, just to up the ante a little.

Developer/Publisher: ZENUXLAB
Genre: Twin-stick shooter
Price: $1.99
Acquired: Review copy provided
Review platform: iPhone 3GS
Verdict: A unique mix of genres, wide range of choices and totally worth the asking price.
Pros: Excellently implemented upgrade system, perfect difficulty curve.
Cons: Maps repeat a few times (but with more enemies and greater difficulty).

It seems there are a few gaming genres that just feel right on the iPhone platform, with twin-stick shooters falling right into that category. Let’s take a look at SurvivorX, a title which takes those rock-steady foundations and flirts with the addition of RPG elements and survival-based stages.

After a recent update, the game offers you up the choice of two hero characters to play as. There’s the big and burly, stereotypical, male Marine, or the rather more dainty and elegant, female Mage. Each will deliver a similar gaming experience, but with varied weapons and abilities at your disposal.

Once you’ve selected, you’ll be dropped into the first of several maps – the usually harmless organisms that would inhabit your yard, such as flowers and mushrooms, have turned bad and developed a way in which to gang-up and make you hurt. There’s no explanation as to why this is happening, but you’d better start shooting, or else.

The two on-screen thumbsticks are the main controls which, as you would imagine, issue the commands to move or shoot in any given direction. These are in turn complemented by two on-screen buttons, which allow you to change your weapon or skill. The third input, is to actually use these skills – you simply tap anywhere in the center of the screen, although having only skimmed the instructions, it took me a while to work this particular one out. “Why won’t he heal?!?”

From here, the goal is to simply survive. A number at the top of the screen will decrease each time you take out an enemy, with stage completion occurring once it reaches zero. Money and points are earned as you finish each stage, with further weapons and skills becoming available to purchase as you progress. You’ll also have the chance to exchange your hard earned cash for character upgrades, such as more health or faster recharge times on your abilities.

The great thing here is that all of these options have their place in the game. Find yourself backed into a corner? The Marine’s shotgun will push enemies back, as well as dealing damage. Running low on health? His healing ability will sure get you out of a sticky situation. It’s really pleasing to see such variation in a games weaponry, rather than just increasing the damage that’s dealt. The developers have done a great job of mixing up reload times, fire rates and the like in order to really put across the feeling that choosing the right weapon is a choice that matters.

My one and only gripe with SurvivorX is that you replay the same map (albeit with more enemies and a greater difficulty) a few times before you get to see the next, it’s a very minor complaint and certainly not one that should hinder your decision to by this game. Apart from that, it’s truly a great title. The RPG elements don’t feel at all out of place, the difficulty curve is spot-on and even after playing right through all stages with both characters, you’ll want to do it all again in the name of fun (and high scores).