Alawar Entertainment released Vampire Saga: Pandora’s Box, a mystery thriller for the iPhone/iPad.

The game puts you in the role of Matthew Ward, a young man who’s stolen away on a cargo ship to escape the Spanish-American War. After passing out, he wakes up to find himself alone with several sinister-looking coffins, and its your job as Matthew to find out what’s going on by searching for hidden objects and unfolding the mystery.

Vampire Saga will be available at the App store for $2.99 for iPhone/iPod Touch, and for $6.99 for the iPad. A lite version is also available for all devices. Check it out!

One of my favorite sports to play, and I mean actually play, is badminton. Granted, its not the toughest sport of all, but it would be great to see the respect and treatment in the video game industry as other sports. Apparently Rolocule Games feels the same way: introducing Super Badminton 2010.

According to Rolocule Games, part of the issue about creating a badminton game is the physics involved with the shuttlecock. But with their proprietary game engine, Rolocule Games provides a realistic badminton experience on iPhone/iPod Touch. Players will be able to choose which shots to make using both touch and tilt controls.

The game comes with three modes: Quick Play, Exhibition, and Tournaments. Exhibition mode allows for the customization of the badminton match such as court, player, difficulty, etc. In tournament mode, players will enter tournaments based on balanced difficulty levels, and attempt to win as many trophies and display them in the trophy cabinet.

Super Badminton 2010 is available now on the App Store for $4.99. It requires the ios 3.0 software

Another week. Another puzzle game for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Usually I would insert a little comment here saying, “But wait! This one’s different!” But I’m not going to. Because the reason I’m writing about this puzzle game is not because of its ingenuity or revolutionary game design. It just looks like a lot of simple fun and addiction. That’s it. It’s Hexius.

At first glance, this might look like another knock off of Hexic. But it’s a little different. In fact, it’s simpler than that. You just have to tap on hexes with the same shape to make the disappear. And there you have it. Simple. The strategizing comes into play via bonus hexes you can create.

Depending on how you clear the hexes, you are awarded bonus hexes. For example, if you surround one or more hexes completely with cleared hexes, those they turn into “freeze” hexes, which then can be used to slow down the time. By meeting difference requirements in clearing hexes, you can create different bonus hexes. I think this is actually a great idea. This puts you in direct control of when and how to use bonuses, instead of waiting for them to randomly appear.

But the biggest draw, at least for me, is just simplicity and fast pace of the game. Because the basics is so simple, you can just go at as a casual gamer, just for fun, or give it time and energy to shoot for the highest scores. And speaking of high scores, Hexius is integrated with Facebook Platform, allowing players to login using their existing facebook account to enter weekly score challenges with friends as well as compare all-time high scores. It really looks like this game might be a great pick up for a broad audience just looking to kill time and have fun.

Features List:

• Time Attack Mode – connect matching hexagons as fast as possible, until time runs out – the faster you play, the higher the score multiplier goes!

Anybody tweet out there? I personally have never tweeted before, but I’m sure all of you tech savvy readers have. Now you can kill two birds with one stone with Tweet Defense.

So the details are not too clear on how exactly the your tweeting and friends list come into play in the game, but we know that it some how affects the strengths of your towers. Like I mentioned, I’m not a tweeter, but I think it’s a pretty cool idea to fuse those two things together into one. Plus, tower tweet defense games are awesome!

Tweet Defense is available now at a limited sale price of $.99!

Here’s the story, and a features list:

“A lethal marketing virus has turned half the world’s population into brain eating zombies. Now they are after you and your friends’ brains! All you have on hand are everyday items and an internet connection. Reach out to your twitter friends to help you build defense towers. Stop the zombies from penetrating your home base and eating your grey matter! With your friends helping you design the towers and your brilliant battle strategies the zombies don’t stand a chance … or do they?”

• 10 incredible levels that build from easy walk in the park to devastating horror show
• 5 whacked out enemy types including the viral marketing zombie and zombie twins Gu and Ga
• 6 tower types including the unique BOOSTER tower that lets you use twitter celebs to boost your tower stats
• Achievements including “Making Video Game History”

While Aliens vs Predator might be one of the most anticipated games coming around the corner, we have another vs game on the market as well: Plants vs Zombies.

Apparently, this game was released for the PC and Mac a year ago. This was the first time I had heard about it, and to be honest, it looks awesome. I mean just from the title, you’d expect, if anything, some great humor.

For those of you, like myself, who are not familiar with this game, its basically a tower defense… or shall we say, “flower” defense (get it? anybody? anybody?). But what’s great about this one is that it is a faithful to the original game design, but aso includes exclusive features and content such as Quick Play Arena and achievements.

Of course, this game, in its original form had much to offer as well. As you progress through the 50 levels, you’ll have access to and encounter environmental influences such as defensive mushrooms that are only available after the sun sets, creeping fog, and swimming pools that provide access to aquatic zombies.

I’m a great fan of tower defense games, and this looks like another fun addition to the pack.

Features List:

- The Quick Play Arena allows easy replay of any level after completing the 50 levels in Adventure mode
-More than a dozen achievements to reward successful completion of in-game challenges
-More than four dozen plants, from cherry bombs and peashooters to melon-pults, wall-nuts and sunflowers
-Dozens of different zombie types, including back-from-the-dead miners, businessmen, football players, and even a zombie bobsled team
-Suburban almanac tracks your progress and provides vital stats on plant and zombie types
-Crazy Dave’s trunk-o’-the-car shop where you can purchase new plants, power-ups, and other zombie-exterminating tools
-New fluid animation technology creates even more visually appealing plants and zippier zombies
-11 original musical pieces that mirror the increasing intensity of the gameplay

Here it is folks. A real action RPG for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Working together with EXE-Create, a Japanese developer, FDG Entertainment brings the nostalgic SNES/Genesis action RPG experience to your mobile device with Across Age.

When I first read about Across Age, I got really excited. I definitely love the complexity that new generation games are offering. But sometimes, I just crave the 16-bit adventures. And it’s always going back to your favorite 16-bit cartridges. But there are many times when I wish I can get a new, old-school experience. So I’m definitely happy to see things like this happening.

Enough about my nostalgia, and more about the game: as you can tell from the screenshots and trailer, this is an action RPG, remeniscent of Zelda, Terranigma, etc. You control either of two characters, Ales, a swordsman or Ceska, a magician. You can change characters at anytime, and they each have unique fighting and special skills that become key in solving puzzles and defeating enemies.

We’ve been told that this game offers more than 15 hours of playtime, with animate cut scenes. It definitely seems to offer a lot. I guess then the big question is how fun the gameplay is, and how entertaining the storyline is. Hope we can find out soon!

Across Age will be available soon at the App Store for $6.99.

For those of you who own and have played Assassin’s Creed II, but don’t have a DS, now have an option to discover the untold stories of Ezio via your apple mobile device!

Oringally released for the DS back in November of 2009, this version of Assassin’s Creed II is not a poor remake of the game. It adds an untold chapter to the Assassin’s Creed II storyline, where Ezio travels to 15th-century Spain in an attempt to rescue fellow assassins being held under the guise of the Inquisition. However, a Templar plot to sail west and discover the New World unfolds as Ezio makes his rescue attempt.

The Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery is now available at the App Store.

In the tradition of all handhelds, Nordcurrent brings to the iPhone/iPod Touch, 101-in-1.

 I remember how excited I was back in the day when a friend of mine bought me the 100-in-1 game cartridge for the original Gameboy when he went to Hong Kong. It just bluew my mind that that little Gameboy cartridge held 100 games!!

Anyhoo, enough about my fond childhood memories and more about the game, not that there’ s much more to say. The title pretty much says it all. The game has a collection of 101 mini games, ranging from puzzle games and fast-paced arcade action, to racing, sports, cooking, shooting, and sudoku. Initially, the player only has access to 10 mini-games. Players accumulate points by completing mini-games. The more points it takes to unlock, the more points the player earns by completing it.

With a price tag of US $2.99 (€2.39Europe) , this may be one of the best investments you make for an iPhone/iPod Touch game. This will be available worldwide on iTunes on January 28, 2010.

Fans of puzzle games, board games and anything Medievil will be creaming their pants for this one: IQ Knights.

This game apparently combines chess, dice-rolling and strategy into one. As you can see from the trailer below, players maneuver around the board by rolling the dice. As you progress along, hidden mechanisms activate to add more depth and fun to the gameplay.

Now you can take all your geekiness on the road. Sweet.

Features list:

- Dice chess with tricky puzzles
- 56 tactical challenges in 7 areas of a castle
- Various types of enemies as obstacles on the game board
- Trigger tiles for hidden mechanisms
- Online high score for heralding your fame
- Easy to understand tutorial

You’re probably thinking, “Flirty puzzle game?” what does that even mean? Well, allow me to introduce you to the cooperative, social ice-breaking, and possible a romantic fire starting game from Japan: Q?pid.

Simply put, this game is Twister for your fingers. Each puzzle has a picture that you and your partner must reveal. Using the multi-touch UI, each player puts his/her finger on their respective markers, and must maneuver, without lifting their fingers, the marker along its path. Simple. But as the game progresses, the maneuvers become increasingly difficult and complex. Once the maneuver is successfully completed, the photo is revealed.

The Edit mode also allows players to use their own photos, with personalized messages and a custom background via their iTunes library.

Shiji Utsumi, president of Q Entertaiment said the Q?pid App is “also a social experiment. We can’t wait to hear stories of romance and flirtation facilitated by our delightful and original app.”

Hmmm… this just might be the ticket to getting a girlfriend…right.