Gamertell

The Apple App Store gaming update is Gamertell’s weekly look at the previous week’s Apple App Store game releases. We cover them all - good and not so good - in their respective categories with a breakdown of the great games and the free games right where you want ‘em, at the top and in your face. The list is available every Monday, right as you are about to start that long work week.

No witty banter this week, I’m busy hanging out with Simon the Sorcerer. But, if adventure games aren’t your thing, maybe one of these many other apps are:

What’s Free

Proto Lite
“San Francisco needs your help! It’s the year 2081 and the city has been invaded by aliens. The aliens need San Francisco’s sourdough bread to power their spaceships! You play as “Proto”, a military combat prototype and San Francisco’s only hope for protection from the evil sourdough bread aliens. Do you have the skills to lead Proto to victory over the Aliens?”

What’s New

Action

Spy Bot Chronicles: Price: $0.99
“Toy Bot has been kidnapped! Thief Bot, the greedy kleptomaniac, has taken him to be used as a shiny, golden trophy and Spy Bot is the only one who can rescue him! Take control of Spy Bot as he jumps, shoots, and hacks his way through a varied 2D world of fun and adventure. Find Thief Bot’s hideout, save Toy Bot, and recover all the other stolen goods Thief Bot has swindled throughout the galaxy!”

Trailer Park Twister: Price: $1.99
“Command one of the most destructive forces of nature and raze a total of 20 pastoral communities! Use the accelerometer to navigate the maze-like levels, tearing along roadways and steering clear of hills and rocky cliffs. Pick up trash bins, cars, trees, cows, and more—then hurl them into your targets for long-ranged destruction! But you had better hurry, because even the most powerful twister must eventually wind down. In the meantime, suck up those dust devils to keep your strength up (or even go beyond and play for a time as the dreaded “F-6” category twister!)”

NetRunner: Price: $0.99
“Be the NetRunner. As one of the best hackers, log in to the virus infested network and help your city!” Use your exceptional skills to breach the security of a dangerous AI system, and save the metropolis from total destruction. Hack, crack and scan viruses, break firewalls and jump through devices of a system that will try to destroy you and spread the evil virus. You are the best there is. You are the only hope.”

Alien Crisis: Price: $1.99
“Alien Crisis is a survival shooting game that brings you an unforgettable shooting experience with realistic graphics, fantastic actions and outstanding visual screenplays. In the year 2025, scientists conducted the Large Hadron Collider experiments. But an accident occurred, creating an portal which connects to the Alien world. A large number of Alien armies invaded into the human world through the portal. The Aliens are cold blooded, horrific and tough. They attacked the human city, destroyed the buildings and prey on humans as food. Although the humans constructed an all-out defense against the Alien threat, they still are defeated in the end. A large number of humans was massacred and humans now face the fate of extinction.

Adventure

Simon the Sorcerer 1: Price: $4.99
“There are some things that kids just shouldn’t have to put up with. Being transported to some weird dimension full of goblins, dwarves, swamplings, stupid wizards and sleeping giants is definitely one of them.  Simon is a teenager transported into a fantasy world as a sorcerer dressed in a cloak and pointy hat. He must use his logic and magical skills to solve puzzles as he progresses through the game. The story begins with the protagonist, Simon, as an ordinary teenager. His dog, “Chippy”, discovers a chest in the loft of his house containing a spellbook titled “Ye Olde Spellbooke”. Simon throws the book onto the floor in contempt, but a portal opens above it. Chippy goes through the portal and Simon follows. After entering the portal, Simon finds himself in another world. He escapes from some goblins who intended to eat him and discovers that he has been brought on a quest to rescue the wizard Calypso from the evil sorcerer Sordid.”

Arcade

Gunrazor: Price: $0.99
“Your Gunrazor assault craft cuts like a knife through those sneaky alien hordes. Your plasma blaster can powerup to screen-sweeping proportions, while your shockwave bombs can clear the whole screen. Aliens can also drop crazy powerups like a supershield and ghost shots that can impale multiple targets at once.”

Board

FourPlay (Four Letter Word Game): Price: $1.99
“A simple, fast-paced and highly addictive challenge to make as many 2, 3 or 4 letter words as you can in 150 seconds. Word game fans be warned…you will be hooked for life! This game is awesome and will keep you occupied for hours on end. Even casual game fans will love FourPlay!  Who doesn’t?”

Card

Spider Solitaire Deluxe: Price: $0.99
“The object of the game is to remove all of the cards from the board in the fewest number of moves. Spider is played using 104 cards. 54 cards are dealt to the 10 Tableau piles at the start of the game. Move the cards from one column to another, playing the cards in descending order, until you line up a suit of cards in order from King to Ace.”

Casino

Hold’em Video Poker: Price: $0.99
“Adjustable bet sizes. Play up to 4 decks (boards for you poker pro’s) at once. Great authentic casino style sound effects. You can even play your music (in the standard music player) and play the game at the same time. Scrolling help to bring you up to speed on what is sure to become one of your favorite games. Credits automatically re-load when you use them all up - no trips to the ATM!”

HOYLE Red Hot Slots: Price: $1.99
“Get ready to win big money! The #1 brand in family entertainment PC gaming introduces HOYLE Red Hot Slots, new to the iPhone and iPod Touch! Designed especially for the touch screen, HOYLE Red Hot Slots features incredible graphics, great sound effects and best of all, 10 slot games in one.”

Dice

World Wars: Price: $0.99
“World Wars is a unique new turn-based strategy game from Powerise Interactive. Using nothing but dice and a randomly generated territory map made of hexagons, the game is similar in gameplay to that of the board game, Risk, though much simpler and quicker to play. The objective is to conquer all territories and eliminate all your opponents by attacking them with dice.”

Educational

iSpellBetter: Price: $1.99
“Like all compelling videogames, it is great fun, with increasingly challenging levels, adjustable difficulty modes and delightful surprises for the determined, strategic player. Amazingly, at the same time, you will become a better speller, as you vanquish words that are not just right-side-up, but once you get to Level 4, upside-down, backwards, plus both upside-down and backwards! You had better earn and save your power-ups, since you’re sure to need them. It’s not just practice or a test of what you already know… no letter scramble disguised as a game. Rather, our straightforward, engaging approach taps your natural capacity to form, hold and retrieve visual images. And it gets you to apply that ability to written words. You’ll not only easily and enjoyably learn the words you encounter in the game, you’ll actually become a much better speller in general.”

iKrypto: Price: $0.99
“Five cards are dealt to you and a common objective card is turned up in the bottom of the screen… The game is under way. Use the numbers on each card in your screen to equal the common objective card by simple addition, subtraction, division and multiplication and any combinations thereof.”

Family

Cat And Mouse: Price: $0.99
“Touch the mice and drag their paths -draw a line- to get candies to score. Get the big candy for double points. Yummy! Run around the traps, be smart! Watch out the cats, they are fast !!! They will chase after the mice! They will capture the little mice and put them into the jail!! Run the little mice, back to the holes to hide from the cats! Be safe at home. WOW!! Team work, four little mice team up !! Lead away the cats from candies so other mice can enjoy the candies. Run to get the golden key !! To rescue the captured mice from the jail, and make them free again !!! YOHO!!!”

Music

SightRead: Price: $0.99
“The game is very simple: Four random notes appear on the staves, so you have to play them correctly using the piano keys.”

Puzzle

Arrange Mask: Price: $0.99
“This is the shiny and good looking representation of old “Puyo Puyo” game. You have a situation in the jungle, where masks are falling from the sky. You have to arrange the falling masks by dragging and rotating before it touches the ground. If four or more same type of masks come together all will be vanished. You have to arrange the masks accordingly preventing the heap to touch the sky, once it touches the game is over.”

Racing

Mini Taxi: Price: $0.99
“Drive to you heart’s content in this fast paced arcade style taxi game! Finally for the iPhone and iPod touch a top-view car game for the arcade game lover. Explore Mini City, keep an eye out for customers and drive like a crazy maniac to get them to their destination in least time possible! Choose from 4 different taxis, with their different driving styles thanks to the realtime physics simulation. Show everyone you’re the best taxi driver around and compete online for the highest score!”

Role Playing

Merdeka atau Mati: Price: $0.99
“When World War II broke out, the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies after the surrender of the Dutch colonial army in March 1942. Three years later, on August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered to the Allied Forces. To Indonesia’s leaders, the power vacuum in Jakarta looked like an open window of opportunity to proclaim their independence. On 17 August 1945, Indonesian national leaders Ir. Soekarno and Dr. Mohamad Hatta proclaimed Indonesia’s independence on behalf of the Indonesian people. You will play this game as an independence soldier in the 1945 struggle for freedom! Your choice was only one, freedom or death (merdeka atau mati). Good luck! and Merdeka!”

Simulation

NOTHING

Sports

NFL 2010: Price: $7.99
“Enjoy a 100% authentic NFL game experience with real teams, real players and real action. Whether you’re are a fan of the Steelers, Cardinals or Cowboys, you can lead your favorite team through an entire season and battle for the ultimate prize: The Super Bowl.”

Strategy

NOTHING

Trivia

WordSpy: Price: $0.99
“WordSpy is a fun word game where you must find hidden words which are embedded in scrolling text across the screen. As you find more words, the scrolling gets faster and faster adding to the difficulty.”

Word

Square Shuffle: Price: $0.99
“The aim of the game is to rearrange a 4x4 matrix of 15 numbers in random order into ascending order.”

iPhone/iPod Touch Links

AppleTell: [Appletell reviews the Goddess Tarot for iPhone and iPod touch] [Appletell reviews Tweetdeck for iPhone, iPod Touch]