The amount of polish that went into this game definitely helps set it apart from the norm. Raven Software had this game ready when the Wolverine movie was set to hit theater. When the movie got pushed back, it gave them a lot more time to tweak the game, really working with the game play. Honestly it shows, I almost wished when I was playing I could have played the original they had planned to released just to check the difference.

But let’s get down to brass tax here: in this game you play as Wolverine (Logan, James Howlett, whatever your fancy) as he (mostly) follows the story-line created for the movie. What stands out about the story is the amount of extra content they put in. Throughout the game’s main story you are put in flashbacks of Logan’s work with Striker and the others in Africa. Even the subtle differences in the story, such as finding Blob in a grocery store rather than in the gym really keeps the game fresh from the movie. After all, a complete carbon copy of a movie can be an acceptable game, but most times that really just doesn’t offer a new and engaging gaming experience.

Speaking of gaming experience, did I mention the fact that Wolverine serves up a platter of vengeance the likes of which this world has never seen? Seriously, I found myself wincing a few times at the violent arm-ripping, statue-impaling, face-crushing combos that litter this game. The term hack and slash definitely suit this game, because you are constantly in a shower of bad guy blood and furious Hugh Jackman screams (naturally, he supplies the voice for Wolverine).

One of the coolest moves in this game that really makes controlling the protagonist so entertaining is the Wolverine lunge. Simple to do, but somehow never tired. For instance, an enemy will be across the map minding his own business thinking villainous thoughts. Simply lock on and push a button (I played on the 360 so it may be different, I’m sure the handy dandy tutorial will elaborate more), and Wolverine soars across the map rocking that guy’s world more than anything in his short video game life.

The controls are very easy to pick up, anybody familiar to other traditional hack and slash games will be able to catch on quick and be fighting for revenge in no time. However this game is in no way perfect. Something that has been a continuing feature in games is the God of War-esque button sequences, which Wolverine features in abundance.

If your looking to seek some quick revenge on those who wronged you (Lord knows I was) X-Men Origins: Wolverine is definitely a title worth playing through. It supplies nice visuals (some of the in game movies are just liquid awesome), fun game play, and a lot of Weapon X style fun.

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The game is called Flight Control, and it’s everything a great pick-me-up casual game should be. It’s got a soundtrack that doesn’t suck, an easy to use interface, and a variety of in-flight disasters just waiting to be averted.

Flight Control is a strategy game that puts you in control of a airport tower. Unlike what we imagine the job of a real flight coordinator, however, the players task is as simple as tracing each plane’s (or helicopter’s) path to the appropriate runway. The task sounds very easy, and the first 10 or so landings are easy. After that, the airways are littered with planes all trying to wreck up your high score.

The game was released last week, and is currently for sale for a whopping 99 cents. A recent update allows fans of Twitter to tweet their high score, as well as uploading your score to an online leaderboard. If you only pick up one iPhone game this month, make sure it’s Flight Control.

We’ll see you on the tarmac!

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Now I don’t consider myself to be a big-time puzzler, but I think I’ve played enough of them to know what’s good and what’s not. We’re gonna skip the Sudoku’s of the world (you either like the ‘classics’ or you don’t) and dive into some of the more original titles you can find on the iTunes App Store. If you feel like I missed the best puzzler of the year, feel free to toss your opinion in the comment mix. Here’s our three picks for great iPhone puzzlers:

Word Scramble by Zynga

If you’re a fan of crosswords and jumbles, take a minute to download Word Scramble by Zynga. The game is free, and let’s you play with friends (either in the room or across the network) in a point-based hunt for words on a jumbled grid. The game also includes a solo mode.

Tiki Towers

If you’re looking for something a little less ‘wordy’, why not try RealNetwork’s Tiki Towers. Players help a crate of monkeys escape each level by building towers and bridges for them to swing across. It may sound easy, but theirs definitely a Lemmings twist to the game. Tiki Towers is a steal at 99 cents, and a ‘lite’ version exists if you want to try it out first.

Vault Breaker

If you play and enjoy Sudoku, grab a free copy of the popular logic puzzler, Vault Breaker. If you’re a puzzler you may have played games like this in the past: players guess at a vault combination and use the each response to edge closer and closer to cracking the code. The title is free, but does contain advertisements.

That’s it for this week! Feel free to drop your picks for iPhone puzzle games in the comments section below, and be ready for our arcade shooter review next week.

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This week, we’re going to shift gears and take a look at a subset of games designed to make your toddler from going ballistic during lunch and wrecking the place up. I like to call them ‘Toddler Defense’ games, and I personally couldn’t live without them in my pocket. Here are three of our picks from both the paid and free categories:

Tappy Tunes: This musical tapping app comes in at four dollars, and I can easily say it’s the best four dollars I’ve ever spent on ‘Toddler Defense.’ Tappy Tunes is no game however, it’s more of a musical distraction: users tap the screen to create the melody of a tune, all the while conjuring forth tune related animations with each tap. The title has over 70 built-in tunes, and is updated with new melodies ever so often.

Duck Duck Duck: This free app is simple enough for your younger kids to enjoy and pretty enough to hold your toddler at bay for a while. The game is simple: using the accelerometer in the iPhone, players guide the various colored rubber-duckies to their home in the pond. Realistic water effects are a nice touch, and who doesn’t like rubber-duckies?

iWriteWords: This title, available in the full version for 99 cents as well as a free ‘lite’ version, is a game that helps toddlers start the long journey that ends in them writing words on your freshly painted walls. Joking aside, however, iWriteWords is one of the most polished education apps we’ve seen on the iTunes store yet. It’s combination of numbers and letters is sure to be a hit with you toddler.

That’s it for this week! Join us next week as we take a look at three mind-bending titles for the puzzle-addict in all of us.

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I may be a little slow on the draw here, but the end of January brought about some major improvements to one of the best titles in the category of ‘Editorial Games,’ Harpooned. The game was created by Conor O’Kane in an attempt to bring attention to Japanese ‘research’ companies hunting whales in the antarctic waters south of Australia. In an article Conor wrote for Gamasutra he shared his reasoning:

Whaling is big news here in Australia. Every December when the Japanese whaling fleet passes by Australia to hunt in the southern ocean, we see footage on the television and read about it in the local newspapers. This is largely due to Australia’s interest in whale watching as a form of tourism, and also because Japan kills whales in and around the Australian Antarctic Territory.

So it’s a controversial and emotional issue in Australia, however for the rest of the world it’s not newsworthy and I suppose most people never give it a thought. I decided to make a game about whaling and specifically about Japan’s claim that their whaling is scientific, to draw international attention to the issue. Games have the ability to reach a younger and broader audience than newspapers or television and a game distributed on the Internet can have a truly international impact.

So my objectives in making Harpooned were:

* To draw international attention to Japan’s claim that their whaling program is scientific, not commercial.
* To reach people who would not normally read a newspaper article about whaling.
* To encourage debate and discussion on the subject.

So that is his objective, but did he pull it off?

When starting up the game you are presented with the full title, Harpooned: Japanese Cetacean Research Simulator. This sets the theme of the game. You now know you play the part of a Japanese Whale Researcher. That is your role.

Once in the game, you play in classic vertical scrolling shooter fashion. Your character is a ship that shoots harpoons at defenseless whales. The game features a number of different whales. Noticeably, there there are humpbacks, sperm whales and several others. The goal is to research whales by killing them and harvesting the meat. The game really makes this rewarding as the waters fill with blood as the whales take more damage and eventually explode into a spray of blood and chunks of meat you are supposed to collect.

Its not all fun and harpoons though. There are protesters that try to get in your way or cause damage to your ship. As of this latest update, you can now capture these protesters to get them out of your way.

“But where does the research come in?” you may be asking. It comes in during the messages presented by the game. At the beginning you are told to research whales. As the game progresses you meet up with the primary research vessel and transfer all the meat to it. The research vessel then researches the meat and uses that research to create pet food, whale burgers and cosmetics. After each unloading, you are presented with another research objective such as “The whales seem to be afraid of our vessels. Kill more to find out why.” Other messages mention that whales are dropping in number and you must kill more to find out why.

As the player makes it to the high scores list, they are added to a list of top “scientists.” The latest updates bring this high scores list online to share with everyone. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it on the list during my short play through. Finally, this latest update brings the game to the Mac. So all you Mac fans can finally enjoy researching whales like everyone else.

As for my claim that this is the best ‘Editorial Game’ out there, it is. Most games that attempt to make a political or editorial statement, fail horribly. They often are nothing more than a glorified “whack a mole” clone. Every now and then a decent one comes out, but this one puts them all to shame. Firstly, it has a message that transcends time and location. Secondly it is fun to play more than once. Finally and most important, it gets people talking.

Back to that Gamasutra article, Conor lists the types of responses he got:

The public response to the game fell into 4 basic categories:

1. People who played the game, got the message and approved. This made up around 90% of the responses.

2. People who were appalled by the blood and didn’t play the game. These were often the most vocal responses, and invariably they were opposed to whaling, but didn’t realise that the game was satirical. These were a very small, but vocal minority.

3. Young males who were attracted to the game because it was violent. Often they didn’t notice or care about the message within the game at first. However this group are internet-savvy. They like to post their impressions online and read other people’s comments. I was delighted to see many in this group who started to engage in serious discussion about whaling, after at first only being attracted to the game because of the blood and gore.

4. Pro-whaling responses from English speaking Japanese people. Usually these were along the lines of “Australians kill kangaroos, so you can’t tell us what we can or can’t kill”, “Whaling is our traditional right” or “If we don’t kill the whales they will eat all our fish”. I have had some very interesting discussions with these people and I’m grateful for those who have taken the time to present their side of the story.

I enjoyed playing the game and think that Conor picked the right avenue for his message. I also hope that those who decide to make other ‘editorial games’ will learn from this game and make something just as good if not better. There is a world of possibilities and potential for this genre of games.

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Before we dive in, however, it’s probably a good idea to define what exactly Tower Defense is, as some of our regular readers may not have had a chance to give this fairly new genre a spin.  In Tower Defense, instead of building armies to attack, players use resources to defend against attacking hordes.  Although there are variations to the concept, most TD games are designed so that players must defend various exits on a map from computer-controlled characters attempting to escape through them.  In a standard TD game, players will have a number of lives that they lose each time they ‘leak’ a computer character, and the hordes get progressively harder to defend against with each level.

The iPhone has become a haven for Tower Defense games, probably because the idea of placing stationary defensive towers works so well with the touch interface.  The spectrum of TD games ranges from paid applications with frequent updates to free applications that provide the same fun at the cost of a little polish.  Here are three of our picks from both the paid and free categories:

Fieldrunners:  We believe Fieldrunners is the pinnacle of Tower Defense games on the iPhone.  At the time of this writing, the game includes three different maps as well as three different game types.  The game is frequently updated by the developers, Subatomic Studios, making this $4.99 title well worth the cash.

Tap Defense:  If you’re looking for a free TD game, Tap Defense is a solid pick.  Although the game is free, its developers have included non-obtrusive advertisements to help pay for the costs of upgrading the game.  Tap Defense has a solid interface and a number of gameplay features that set it a notch above other free titles.

Crystal Defender:  If you’ve played any games in the last ever, you’ve probably heard of Square Enix.  They made Final Fantasy, versions 1 through 3 million.  They also created Crystal Defender, a Tower Defense game cast with everyone’s favorite Chocobos.  A free trail version is also available, which we would suggest grabbing before you drop the eight dollars on the full version.

Make sure you join us for next week’s edition, where we help you use your iPhone to keep your spawnling from constantly screaming at Wal-Mart.

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Each week, Mg reviews some of the hottest iPhone trinkets and games available in the US, and hopefully help guide some of those hard-earned iTunes dollars to a loving home.  If you have a favorite that we’ve not reviewed, drop us a line and point us in the right direction.

This week we’re going to start with a new favorite, an instant classic, and a solid pick for iPhone gamers.

Our new favorite: Tower Bloxx Deluxe 3D

This addictive stacking-skill game is not only excessively lovely, but it’s easy to pick up and play for five minutes, too.  A party mode lets two people get in on the action at the same time, making this $6.00 title well worth the bucks.

Our instant classic: Fieldrunners

My toddler can’t get enough of Fieldrunners, which makes him the coolest two-year old in the city.  If you’re looking to blow 5 bucks in the App Store, this ‘Tower Defense‘ style game is not only extremely polished, but it’s a great way to kill an hour at the airport.  Strategy gamers must own this game.

Our solid pick: Orions: Legends of Wizards

If you missed the Magic: The Gathering phenomenon by a few years, don’t fret!  Orions: Legends of Wizards combines a magic-and-monster card game with a touch of city-management strategy for flavor.  The combo makes this 5 dollar purchase a solid pick if you are a fan of M:TG or card based strategy games in general.

Drop back by next Friday for three more stellar time-wasters for your favorite phone.

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Yet it is not really the gameplay that breaks new ground as each has been done in full-game format before. Where Spore succeeds is in combining the five “mini-games” into a streamlined experience that can be played by gamers of any level and comes with customization that has not been seen in gaming since pen and paper RPGing. Each level features several user-operated content generators – from deciding the look of your creature to generating your civilization’s national anthem.

More impressively is that because the creatures, buildings, and vehicles are all generated by code, they can be quickly sent to the EA-operated Sporepedia, an online database that stores most of the content generated by Spore players. Every time the player creates a new world, the game checks with Sporepedia and randomly downloads a variety of creatures for the player to interact with, ensuring that each player has a truly 100% unique experience. While many early creatures are ugly, and there are more than a fair share of Pokémon lookalikes and multi-phallused phalluses taking up space in the Sporepedia, many more of the creatures are haunting and strangely beautiful.

The GUI will be instantly familiar to anyone with experience playing The Sims, while the graphics and music set a proper tone for evolving a microcosm. Furthermore, because the game is largely based in code, graphic quality is scaleable so that even older machines can run the game while having it look pretty decent.

The phrase “sum of its parts” has never been more thoroughly applicable than with Spore. The individual stages, while all entertaining are certainly not full-bodied enough to constitute a complete gaming experience in and of themselves. Yet when combined, this is a beast of a game with scale and ambition to match.

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You play Preston Marlowe, re-assigned to the 222nd Battalion, B Company after a “misunderstanding” involving you and a helicopter. Consisting of the Army’s undesirables, B Company is sent straight onto the front lines as “cannon fodder.” In your squad is Sweetwater, a jittery bookworm who enlisted in hopes of getting some money for college, Haggard, a good ol’ country boy with an unhealthy obsession with explosives, and Sergeant Redford, who’s just trying to survive so he can retire and buy a fishing boat. As you push into Russian controlled territories, you’ll discover that there’s a group of mercenaries in the area that, rumor has it, pays in gold bars. After the Army abandons you behind enemy lines, you and your squad decide it’s time to seek your fortunes on a wild and sometimes hilarious romp.

For those of you familiar with the Battlefield series, the same open game play formula has been brought to this game. You have a huge degree of flexibility in accomplishing your missions. The first is the vast openness of the game areas you’ll get to maneuver in. You can try to hoof it to get around or find a vehicle to get to your objective. The type of vehicle determines your tactics. Use a tank to blast your way to your objective or hop on a patrol boat and head down stream. Either way, you’ll face your fair share of enemy troops.

Worth mentioning is the amount of destruction you can cause. You can blow houses to pieces with grenades, rockets, or whatever variety of high explosive you have at your disposal. A well aimed shot from your grenade launcher can take out sandbag fortifications. Use a laser designator to drop a JDAM on a tank. The amount of things you can destroy also impacts your decisions on the battlefield. For instance, you encounter a couple of enemies in a house. You can try to just storm in through the front door, or shoot a box of high explosives and take out the entire side of the house. Or order a mortar strike and flatten the house to rubble. Either way, you can adjust your tactics to your situation. Honestly, you’ll probably enjoy running around shooting anything that explodes.

Battlefield games are known for their multi-player modes, and this one brings its own flavor, called Gold Rush mode, basically an attack/defend scenario. The attacking force’s job is to blow up crates of gold scattered throughout the map, which in turn opens more of the game map. The Battlefield standard, Conquest mode, is available for free download as well. Graphically Bad Company is good, but the sound is what really stands out. The sound engineers at Dice have done an outstanding job capturing the violence and realism of a gun battle. The dialogue can be hilarious as well. There’s nothing like watching Haggard and Sweetwater go at it with a game of roshambo or trade insults with each other.

On the other hand, the squad AI is a bit frustrating. They do a good job following you around the map, but you’ll end up doing most of the shooting. And it also appears that the enemies can pick you out easily, even if you exposed a single pixel, which can lead to some unbalanced shootouts. Thankfully, you have a health syringe you can use after waiting a short time for it to recharge.

Battlefield: Bad Company has put together a great gaming experience by combining some great new gaming elements and a fun multi-player experience, all the while delivering a story about the “lighter” side of war. Definitely give this game a whirl. It’s good to be bad.

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But I forgot one painful thing – it’s on the PSP.

It would seem there are two types of games made for the little system that could – those that are made specifically for the system, realizing the limitations it has, and other games which are simply made for a mini-PS2. You know the ones that feel like they should have a second analog stick? The ones with lots and lots of platforming and bad cameras? It’s a shame really, but these games seem to pop up all the time, and Secret Agent Clank falls squarely on this side.

In the first few moments of the game, all the flaws that could come out do. Starting off with Clank behind enemy lines, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the normal beat-em-up action of the Ratchet and Clank series. In fact, Secret Agent Clank is a stealth-based adventure game, requiring fast reflexes and quick movements – two things the PSP has never excelled at. As such, the first area can take quite a few tries before you make it through. Quite a few tries.

Other parts are flat-out broken. Thanks to the terrible camera, platforming is next to impossible. Sure, you can take your time, adjusting the camera in between each jump like you usually are forced to, but thanks to some odd design choices, you’ll be forced to do so quickly. Enemies will fire their guns as you leap, usually leading to quite a few cheap falls and even cheaper deaths.

So why am I still giving it 3 out of 5 in my rating? Because, like every Ratchet game, it is brilliantly written and hilarious to play through. While the actual gameplay is terrible, the in-jokes and dialogue will bring a smile to the most jaded gamer. If you are able to handle a few headaches here and there, and some very frustrating moments, Secret Agent Clank is a difficult, but fun, addition to your PSP collection.

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