It’s the announcement Sonic fans have been craving since its reveal earlier this year: the 2D series reboot Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will finally be launched on current generation consoles this October.

SEGA confirmed the various pricing and release dates for all formats, which are as follows:

• iTunes App Store (iPhone, iPod Touch): October 7
• Wii Shop Channel: October 11, 1500 Wii Points (Oct. 15 EMEA)
• Xbox Live Arcade: October 13, 1200 MSP ($15)
• PlayStation Network: October 12, $14.99 / £9.99 / €12.99 (Oct. 13 EMEA)

Details of the iPhone version are also said to be coming soon.

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DICE managed to both shock and delight when it announced the existence of the original Mirror’s Edge.  Coupling a first person perspective with a platformer seemed liked the realm of an indie title. In actual fact, several indie developers had taken a stab at the premise but fallen short.

The game had a few niggles and became a real love/hate title for many.  For me it was love at first sight.  The gorgeous art style, the primary colours and minimalistic architecture all made it so appealing.  Faith was a great stab at a reasonable female game lead that was not reliant on gimmicks, skimpy underwear or breasts.  So I eyed the release on iPhone sceptically.

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Shoehorning a console experience into an iPhone is a lot like trying to fit a dead body into a suitcase — it’s doable, but it’s not always advisable. Many publishers think that just because the platform now has the graphical and processing capacity (barely) to handle SNES/Genesis era games that it means carte blanche for dumping their back catalogs on the App Store. The problem here is that how a game plays is just as important as how it runs, and iPhone controls simply will never work for some games.

That’s not to say that no retro games can work as iPhone ports, but pushing platformers or other games that require precision timing and control responsiveness isn’t they way to go. On the flip side, the turn-based strategy RPG is a genre that translates extremely well; just look at the success of other SRPGs across all portable platforms. As such, I went into SEGA’s iPhone port of Shining Force with a liberal dose of optimism.

Read on for the official review!

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Prior to the purchase of my first iPhone, I did not take it seriously as a gaming platform at all. In fact, I actually recoiled at the idea conceptually. I’ve also never been one to subscribe to the hardcore gamer tendency of dismissing social games and so-called “casual games.” On the other hand, I couldn’t look at the iPhone and consider it in the same category as my Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS, or PC. Those are all “platforms.” The iPhone, however, was “a phone with games you can play on it.”

My wife won her iPhone two years ago in a raffle, and fell in love. She’s a blogger and social media junkie, which is what she mostly used the phone for. When I discovered the existence of Mass Effect Galaxy, being a junkie of the franchise, I ordered the game up on her phone and gave it a whirl.
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John Carmack of id Software made an announcement today at QuakeCon 2010 which sounded completely and engrossingly insane. I like insane when it comes to gaming. It usually makes me happy.

First, the good news about id iPhone gaming in the here and now: sales. Lots of ‘em, all running until the end of QuakeCon on Sunday, August 15th.
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There’s no two ways about it – gaming isn’t a cheap hobby. Luckily, the creeping rise of the digital distribution market is giving many budget-conscious gamers a break these days. XBLA, PSN, Wii-Ware, and others are all playing with how to offer alternatives to AAA titles, both in terms of content and cost. However, the pricing model for this market is still in an experimental, Wild West phase.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Apple App Store. There’s a ton of games out there, and separating the wheat from the chaff can be an arduous task. Even when you do find the good games, there’s no consistency with pricing versus quality. A poor game can run you upwards of ten dollars, but the good news is that you can often find extremely well-designed and fun games there for next to nothing.

If there’s one thing I like more than a good game, it’s a good game that’s also cheap. If you’re of like mind, then read on! Gamer Limit’s got your back with four great titles that will only cost you a buck.

Last month’s North American release of Deathsmiles on the Xbox 360 has provided a sign that shmup fans may no longer have to deal with expensive Japanese imports to experience Cave shooters. Following the recent iPhone release of Espgaluda 2, Cave has announced that it is planning a full English localization and worldwide release of Guwange on Xbox Live Arcade.

Cave has recently revealed a trailer for their next vertical bullet hell shmup, Akai Katana (or Red Katana in English). Unfortunately, the trailer does not show any gameplay footage, but does show off some nice character art and narrative. Read more… »

When you think of female characters in gaming, they tend to fall into one of two categories. On one hand, you’ve got your independent ass-kickers like Samus, Alyx Vance, and Jade. On the other, you have the damsels in distress, such as Peach and Zelda, who seem content to cheer from the sidelines and hang out in dungeons.

Throughout gaming, the word princess has been synonymous with useless… that is, until now. Enter Princess Fury for the iPhone. When her kingdom is threatened by all kind of evil creatures, she does what any self-respecting potential monarch should: she grabs an extremely over-sized sword and she hits the battlefield.

Now, you may think that a ruffly pastel dress, shiny silver shoes, and a tiara would be impractical for heavy combat. Well, the Princess is out to show us otherwise, and the result is an entertaining little title for the iPhone.

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It is often preached that one of the great pros to the App Store is the little games that would otherwise go unnoticed or would quickly die under the blizzard of AAA mainstream mega-games. Enter, Chase the Dot: an incredibly simplistic and fun title developed by art studio Universal Everything who specialize in handheld media.

If you haven’t heard by now, then let me catch you up to speed on the gameplay: there is a dot that appears, disappears, and reappears in several spots on the screen, and you get points by tapping it before it’s gone. In Double mode there are two dots which disappear and reappear simultaneously, and therefore must be tapped simultaneously. Read more… »

The term “bullet hell” has always frustrated me, linguistically speaking. It technically denotes a place where bullets go when they die if they are wicked. The concept is patently unfair, since they are propelled out of guns without their consent, and so do not consciously choose to kill people or willfully destroy paper targets.

As a result, I am now adopting the Big Trouble in Little China method of description — Hell of a Thousand Bullets. It makes more sense grammatically and conceptually, and on top of that it just sounds more bad-ass in general.

Armed with this spiffy new nomenclature, I can now with a clear conscience discuss the recent porting of the highly lauded Cave shooter, Espgaluda II, to the iPhone. Now you too can visit the Hell of a Thousand Bullets from wherever you happen to be in your own personal hell.

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Out of all the character archetypes one regularly encounters in sci-fi, I have to say that one of my absolute favorites is the space smuggler/trader. From Han Solo to Malcolm Reynolds, I’m automatically on their side. The whole underdog, wing-and-a-prayer, murky ethical waters, and shooting from the hip thing just wins me over.

Back in the day, I used to live out my space captain fantasies with BBS (Bulletin Board System) door games like TradeWars 2002 and Solar Realms Elite. In more recent years, trader games have moved to two extremes. On the hardcore end you’ve got EVE Online, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, there are the simple pirate trader games like Tradewinds. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to sink into EVE, and the more casual offerings just don’t offer enough depth to keep me engaged for long.

Enter Warpgate for the iPhone. When I heard that Freeverse had launched a game that could possibly hit that happy medium for me, I immediately bought the game to see if the porridge was just right. 20+ hours of single-player handheld gaming later, I’m happy to report that playing it induced a relaxed experience – one might call it a sense of Serenity.

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In a rather random turn of events, the iPhone version of Robot Unicorn Attack is now officially available on iTunes for $2.99, basically launching in the middle of the night. I literally bought it the minute it hit the market, and I’ve been enjoying it up until I took the time to make this post.

RUA started off as a simple flash game, in the vein of the already successful Canabalt, and quickly turned into so much more – let’s just say it involves T-Shirts, 22 million plays, this epically ludicrous song, and highly unsafe for work furry fanfiction (the best kind).

Buy it here, or play the free online Flash version here!