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.

It’s hard to believe it but it’s true - this is Thanksgiving week here in North America and with it comes the biggest and sometimes most brutal shopping day of the year: Black Friday. Odds are, if you are going to brave the frothing consumer hordes this Friday, you are going to be lining up early and thus, need something to help pass the time. We’ve got just the thing for you right here with this week’s App Store releases. This week’s most notable include Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader 2010, Spooky Spirit, Ninja Assassin, and Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies.

P.S.A: Remember folks, if you are going out, be civilized and more over, be safe. Odds are, that $30 bucks of your item of choice isn’t worth a hospital bill to go with it.

What’s Free

iShoot Turkey
“Play the game of iShootTurkey by OrientMaple! The game iShootTurkey will surely give you a lot of fun! Look at all turkeys flying around the screen, and how exciting it will be to shoot all of them down to the ground! Moreover, with 3D model, the turkey looks so vivid and lovely and fantastic. I’m sure you’ll addict to it! Come on! And check out how many turkeys you can shoot!”

Pumpkin Murderer
“Since day before Halloween, pumpkins and ghosts are destroying a village. A girl, who stand alone to fight back to them, You are now required to control a girl to fight back to pumpkins and ghosts for recover a village from messed. Every time when you attack an enemy, they will divide by two or more to reduce. There is limited to be reducing after attack them and at the end they will finally eliminated. We now asked you to stand alone to fight back to them until they destroyed before they attack you. When ghosts are dead, they might leave a special item that you can use. Here now, a village’s destiny will be base on how you fight against to pumpkins and ghosts.”

Robot Football
“Click “How To Play” in the top right-hand corner of the main menu. In Robot Football you don’t just call the plays, you design them! Every 40 seconds you program your robots to run, block, pass, intercept, and steal the ball - while your opponent does the same! Once you’ve entered your plays, sit back and watch as both teams carry out their programming simultaneously. It’s a battle of strategy and wits - do you have what it takes to out-think your opponent and score the touchdown?”

Word Chain
Word Chain is a fast fun game of connecting two words together. It’s a race against the clock as you solve puzzle after puzzle to connect the chains. Post your high scores and earn achievements through openFeint!”

What’s New

Action

Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies: Price: $9.99
“Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies brings the classic Call of Duty: World at War zombie-slaying game mode to the iPhone™ and iPod® Touch. Featuring the original zombie map “Nacht der Untoten” (Night of the undead), fight to survive in the barricaded bunker where it all began - and you can bring along your friends to help push back the endless waves of attacking zombies.”

Star Wars Trenchrun: Price: $4.99
“Your mission: Use the Force to overthrow the evil Galactic Empire as they attempt to destroy the small rebel base on the jungle moon of Yavin 4. As part of the Rebel Allianceʼs Red Squadron, you dogfight with TIE fighters above the Death Starʼs surface before heading into a trench where you are inundated by cannon fire. Dodge obstacles and stay out of Darth Vaderʼs sights as he tries to gun you down before you have the chance to fire your proton torpedoes into the thermal exhaust port the size of a womp rat. If successful, a direct hit will cause a chain reaction that destroys the Death Star, thus saving the Rebel base from impending doom.”

Castle Frenzy: Price: $1.99
“Feed the dark elves to the hydra, make warlocks explode against the fortress, drop a giant troll on a goblin squad, smash elves to the ground, shake away skeletons, throw boars in the air, and use magical spells to petrify, freeze or burn threatening invaders!”

Chuck Norris: Bring on the Pain!: Price: $1.99
“Step into the boots of America’s toughest man in the first Chuck Norris game available for your iPhone and iPod touch. A brilliantly outlandish scenario sets you, Chuck Norris, in the Cambodian jungle to release prisoners of war held hostage by a rogue army of Communist soldiers. Inspired by old-school arcade games, Chuck Norris features the enjoyable and simple ingredients of a traditional beat’em up spiced up with crazy combos, exciting mini-games and totally destructible environments. The crowning touch is the ability to use your iPhone to take a picture of anyone you like (or dislike) and beat them up in the game! This is a Chuck-Norris-approved stress relief method!”

Adventure

Ninja Assassin: Price: $4.99
“Welcome to the chaotic hack n’ slash world of Raizo, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Armed with a deadly chain-blade, duel-katanas and shurikens, battle your way through wave after wave of enemies by simply swiping your finger across the screen, thus severing limbs, removing heads, and even slicing bodies in two. Be sure to hide in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to engage countless enemies and overwhelming bosses through 12 harrowing levels, leading to the ultimate confrontation!”

Surviving High School: Price: $2.99
“Now experience high-school the way YOU want! Become a jock or a nerd, a popular kid or an outsider… Change the story with each decision you make. But remember, some choices are wiser than others… With multiple people to date, tons of quiz questions, and secret scenes, the story can bend any way you choose… Play more than once, and see how the story could turn out different! Just like a good TV show, “tune in” each week for all-new episodes at NO ADDITIONAL COST! Each show airs for seven days, and then it’s replaced with a new one. Look below to see what’s NOW AIRING this week! Your choices twist and turn your story in different directions. Easy and intuitive touch- control action sucks you right into the mix. Comic-style graphics, funny dialogue, and mini-games increase the overall awesomeness of your experience at Centerscore High. Get even more stories when you purchase EPISODES ON DEMAND. Go back to school whenever you want with…never-before-seen & upcoming episodes – even catch episodes you missed!”

Ravensword: The Fallen King: Price: $6.99
“Enter the world of Ravensword: The Fallen King; a massive, sandbox-style adventure for the iPhone and iPod touch. Combining 3D action with RPG elements, Ravensword features rich and interactive environments that bring you a gaming experience unlike anything you’ve seen on the iPhone platform. Take on quests to earn money and experience. Wield powerful weapons and magical runes. Battle fearsome enemies such as Orcs, Trolls, Ogres and Demons. Test your skills with a variety of games and side quests.”

Alicia Darkstone: Price: $0.99
“Alicia arrives at her friends house and finds his room completely devastated. What happened there?
Who might have done this? Where’s Alicia’s friend – Matthew? While conducting investigation you’ll find answers to this questions, but every answer will bring out new mysteries. Alchemy, betrayal, corruption, perils and many more – all of this awaits you in “Alicia Darkstone: The mysterious abduction”!”

Arcade

Virus Expansion: Price: $0.99
“The goal is to have the majority of your color chips on the board by moving your chips. If you want to play more stages buy full version.”

Turkey Hunt Thanksgiving Dinner: Price: $0.99
“It is the Day before Thanksgiving and you just found out that fifty three of your closest friends are coming to your house for a big Thanksgiving dinner because you are master chef (Pier la Goo)”.
On the big day you accidentally leave the back door of the kitchen open and your precious dinner turkeys wander in.Turkey Hunt is a fun little game where you are scrambling to make Thanksgiving Dinner in time. As the chef, your job is to take the running cartoon turkeys and make them into a ready to serve Thanksgiving dish. There are other items that you need to prepare such as pumpkin pie. Turkey Hunt Thanksgiving Dinner is a classic arcade style game were you have to prepare all the turkeys before the time runs out. As the rounds increase so does the speed and difficulty of the game.”

Go Go Robot: Price: $1.99
“Your robot is now stepping into the test laboratory, you’ll have help it to survive at all costs, even when the robot has only its head left scrambling on the ground! But you are not alone, variety of supplies will come to help you and so sometimes you can even fight back!”

Spooky Spirits: Price: $1.99
“Spooky Spirits: Puzzle Drop!! is the new improved version of our popular falling block puzzle game! The game introduces a new twist on the falling block and match-2 formula and comes with three different game modes — including a clever and relaxed puzzle mode and a panic mode (for those of you who enjoy more fast-paced action). Two wacky spirit wardens, Becky & Tim, fell asleep on their watch allowing all the Spookies to escape! Spookies is really only a different word for naughty ghosts. You must help Becky & Tim to stop the Spookies from haunting innocent humans or else they will lose their jobs!”

Board

Duality: Price: $0.99
“The goal of Duality is simple: Navigate the blue orb through the maze and onto the blue target. However, the blue orb is bound to the red orb, so the two always move in unison. As a result, if either orb is blocked in a given direction, it’s not possible to move in that direction. To unblock areas of the board, navigate the orbs against force fields, which change the distance between the two orbs and open up new paths through the maze.”

Christmas Solitaire: Price: $0.99
“lassic Solitaire (sometimes known as Klondike or Patience) with 21 different festive Christmas themes and music!”

Card

NOTHING

Casino

Virtual Horse Racing 3D Lite
“Virtual Horse Racing 3D is the most realistic 3D horse racing game on iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s easy, exciting, fun, and highly addictive. Challenge yourself and see how much you can win! This game is for everyone. Even if you’ve never placed a bet before in your life!”

Poker Dash: Price: $0.99
“Pokerdash is combined with the strategy and fun of Poker with the simplicity of solitaire along with elements of classic puzzle games. The idea is to build the best poker hands possible by placing cards in any one of three hands. If your points for each round match or beat the target you will advance to the next round. The better the poker hands the more points you will be awarded. Sound simple? Pokerdash is a highly addictive challenging game of skill that will provide many hours of fun! How high can you get? Will you become the World Champion on the Timed leaderboard? Poker’s a day to learn and a lifetime to master.”

Dice

Nextwave Multimedia’s Snakes and Ladders: Price: $0.99
“Roll up your sleeves, and start enjoying the timeless Indian classic board game – Snakes and Ladders! Throw the dice, and help the frog reach the target. Ladders will speed up your journey to the target, while snakes will keep you from reaching it. Get, set, and start rolling the dice!!!”

Educational

OrderUp
“This game has five levels. The cards will be generated randomly each time. Cards should be arranged in an ascending order of number or fractions shown.”

Vertex: Price: $0.99
“In this puzzle game for all ages you have to color each point of the web so that no two points of the same color are connected by a line. Sounds simple? With 700 difficulty levels to choose from it can be as simple or as challenging as you like.”

Geometry Tree: Price: $1.99
“This educational game helps 4 year old kids or older to distinguish geometric shapes in an easy and happy way. While playing with figures your kid will develop a solving problem ability, distinguishing behavior pattern and improving the observation and concentration ability. On the second level you need to press the correct figure of the tree in the same sequence they appear, producing a very nice melody. The use of colors makes it easier for kids to identify the figures and follow the correct order. You and your kid will learn short melodies that can be practiced in real instruments due to the fact that the game uses real musical notes which makes it fun for all ages.”

Extraterrestrial Civilization : Price: $0.99
“Now the secrets of the Drake equation and get your own conclusions. The history behind it, the initial estimations and the famous estimations. You can also get your own estimation by using the parameters, one by one. All this accompanied by cool graphics and music that will make you dive into deep space.”

Family

Bubble Factory: Price: $2.99
Welcome to the factory! Bubble Factory is a fast action and puzzle game where your goal is to collect the bubbles while keeping them safe from bubble traps. Use gravity and your fingers to move and blow the bubbles into the collectors while keeping them safe by destroying the traps. Listen to a full set of sound effects and music or mute the in-game music and play along to your own collection. There are 25 levels of bubble collecting fun and 5 challenges to test your bubble collecting abilities for hours of play! Compare your best scores with your friends using the local score storage.”

Soccer Heading: Price: $0.99
“Wii Fit Balance Game. Did you ever want to play the Soccer Heading game on the GO. Now you can on your iphone or itouch. Balance Games: Get into the action with fun, balanced-based games like SOCCER HEADING.”

Harry Potter: Spells: Price: $4.99
“You are officially invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Once enrolled, receive the wand destined for you before being Sorted into one of the four houses by the Sorting Hat. Then using specific hand gestures for each of the 14 spells, practice, practice, practice before experiencing the ultimate contest - DUELLING! Compete against the computer or challenge a fellow classmate to a real-time duel – player versus player, casting spells from one device to the other. Earn valuable house points for your house while learning, practicing and duelling. Visit the house points section to see your official stats and global ranking - in your specific house or in all of Hogwarts. Finally, share it with the rest of the world by posting it to your Facebook page via Facebook Connect.”

Brain Party: Price: $0.99
“Looking for a great way to keep your brain in shape? Brain Party is a puzzle-solving, brain-stretching game that comes with over 30 minigames designed to push your brain to its limits, testing memory, logic, mathematics, reactions and more. Brain Party is split into two main modes: test mode gives you five random games to measure your general brain power, whereas practise mode lets you play your favourite games as often as you want. As you play, more minigames are unlocked and Brain Party automatically tracks your test results so you can monitor your progress over time. If you do really well, you can unlock secret games and a whole new game mode designed to keep you playing and enjoying your favourite games even longer.”

Pocket Farm Lite
“Pocket Farm is the farming game you have all been waiting for on the iPhone! You’ve probably heard about the farming phenomenon on Facebook and wished you could play it anywhere. Now you can build your farms wherever you go! Pocket Farm is a casual sandbox game that let’s you build farms at your own pace and sell your harvest in a fun mini-game.”

Music

Fretboard Warrior: Price: $3.99
“Like the popular version of Fretboard Warrior for PC and Fretboard Warrior lite version, Fretboard Warrior is a tool designed to help guitar student to memorize the fretboard. In addition, Fretboard Warrior allows the user to choose between 2 types of game. By STRING and by POSITION. You can choose on which string and position you want to play. This way the user can focus on the portion of the Fretboard he has difficulties with.”

Touch Tone Hero: Price $1.99
“Tired of playing tunes on your cell phone for your friends, only to accidentally dial up the Chinese Embassy? Well, no more! With Touch Tone Hero, you can rock your proverbial socks off without fear of starting an international incident. Play over 24 included songs or discover your own in the aptly named Free Play mode. Compete for the high score and achieve legendary status amongst a group of your friends. Do you have what it takes to become a rock star? Of course not, that’s why you’re playing music on a phone.”

Big Brain Of Fire: Price: $2.99
“Rock your iPhone with Big Brain Of Fire! Big Brain Of Fire is a totally different approach on music games, where you can play whatever you want on real drums, real guitar’s fret, and even
a whole octave of rocking vocal! Every instrument has its own, unique control scheme and highest quality, real sound which will give you an impression of being a real rock star. Big Brain Of Fire includes a classic tour mode with awesome rock songs, in which you can practice your skills and gather points. Complete the tour mode to unlock jam session, where you can free style anywhere you want! Gather 3 friends and make your own pieces of rock, play them together and have a rocking fun!”

ReverSing Battle: Price; $1.99
“ReverSing Battle is unusual two-player game with an addictive gameplay. The firs player record and reverse his singing and the second one should guess that song, employing application features. There are no similar app on App Store that’s why you’ll definitely like it.”

Alley Cats
“Meow the night away in Alley Cat style, With seven cool cats that are sure to make you smile . Alley Cats features 3 cat-tastic modes. Re-create and practice making your favorite songs with a chorus of Alley Cats in “Free Style” mode. Use “Record Mode” , to save your Alley Cat masterpieces to play back later or share with friends. Then there’s the challenging “Catsentration”, try to follow the 7 cool cats and repeat everything they do. It’s not easy; but if you have a good ear, a good eye, a great memory and a love for cats you may be able to match the raucous the Alley Cats make.”

Puzzle

MimeMory: Price: $0.99
“MimeMory is a memory-style game where the main objective is to reproduce an image shown at the beginning of each stage. Within the game, the player is required to select provided options (in the form of images slices) in order to replicate the previously displayed image/answer. A limited number of cheats are available to help the player complete the stages. The game features two playing modes: Normal and Challenge. The Normal mode contains 12 stages, each of which may apply a different time limit and allow a unique set of Cheats. The game is over if the time limit has been reached in any of the stages or if all the stages are completed. In the Challenge mode, the player is equipped with a pre-defined set of Cheats to play through an indefinite series of stages within a given time limit.”

Foodoku - AddictingGames: Price: $0.99
Foodoku is an exciting and funny new variant of the classic Sudoku game where you have to solve puzzles full of cute little creatures. Like in a classic Sudoku game you have to fill the empty places of a puzzle with the missing creatures. Every row must contain one of each creature. So must every column, as must every 3x3 square. Foodoku contains four different difficulty levels, 100 puzzles and 5 different creature sets that make the game more challenging and entertaining. You can pause the game at any time to continue later without loosing your game progress. Train your brain with a daily dose of “Foodoku”.”

Cell Jumper: Price: $0.99
Know how use the knight on a chess board? Want to train yourself to spot jump squares super fast? Jump into the shoes of a certain hungry horsie and push your pattern recognition skills to their limits! Race against the clock to eat every deliciously placed carrot on the board before time runs out. Did I mention horses love carrots? Well, they do… At least they do now. Each new level brings more difficult puzzles with even more tasty carrots and an oh-so-precious increase in time. How long can you last? Perhaps you should play Cell Jumper right now to find out!”

Tower of the Sorcerer: Price: $0.99
“Tower of the Sorcerer is a cross between a puzzle game and an RPG. The story is saving the princess who was locked in the magic tower, it is the such story as you have heard the other day. But the fact is that this story isn’t related to this game at all. Why? You will know the reason when you play this game. As the contents of this is RPG, there is the side like a puzzle. Please play this without hurry combining with training of brain. To save the princess you must go up the floors. You fight the bad guys and get keys to open doors. You have a health meter and you can gold coins and experince to increase defensive power, offensive power, and health. The levels are not randomly generated so the game will be the same every time you play.”

The Watcher: Price: $1.99
“If you’ve ever played Geoff Crammond’s classic game “The Sentinel” then you will be right at home with The Watcher! The Watcher is a real-time 3D puzzle game in which you must stealthily move to the top of a landscape and absorb all the evil eyes looking for you. If a watcher spots you then it will sap your energy - lose too much and it’s game over!”

Bear Paw
“Introducing Bear Paw a simple and challenging, and beautiful game. Watch the gravity and stunning particle effects light up the iPhones screen as stars and comets collide. The game is an intriguing game based on a barnes-hut gravity simulation of stars. The goal of the game is to place your space ship on the screen and set it off on a path avoiding the stars and collecting the comets. With every comet you collect a score multiplier is applied to increase the rate at which your score increases. Do you go for the comets or play it safe and avoid the stars… The dilemma is yours.”

Racing

The Reindeer Games: Price: $0.99
“Choose your reindeer in this exciting event: the chimney slalom! You see one of the biggest problems for the reindeer is zipping between all those chimneys out there.”

Egg&Spoon: Price: $0.99
“Have fun, race your friends and get some good exercise by playing the age old Egg and Spoon race through your IPhone or IPod Touch. Your IPhone/ IPod touch is your spoon and your egg, just tilt it to make sure that the egg stays on the spoon. Tilt it too much as your running and the egg will probably fall off. You can play the game in two modes, one called “One drop and your out” and the other called “Pause and play on”. With “One drop and your out”, if you drop your egg your out of the race, so the person who gets to the finishing line without dropping their egg is the winner. With “Pause and play on”, if you drop your egg you are not out of the race, you can pick it up and then continue on. To pick up your egg, you must hold your IPhone/ IPod Touch steady for a number of seconds until the egg reappears and then you can continue. If you move during this ‘pick up time’ (i.e cheat), then it takes longer for the egg to come back, so don’t even bother. In the settings part of the game you can indicate how many seconds you must pause for before the egg comes back. You can play many variations of the game against your friends. If you have only one IPhone/ IPod Touch with the game, then you can run your races individually and then whoever has the fastest time wins. Or even better, if your friends also have the game then you can race against each other.”

Role Playing

SolarStrike: Price: $0.99
“SolarStrike is a challenging space shooter multi-touch arcade with RPG elements. You are a pilot of a spaceship on a rescue mission and you are forced to fight an unknown force in asteroid fields, space platforms, unknown alien bases. No game overs! Infinite continues and level restarts, but the levels are not so easy and would be interesting even for very skilled players.”

Simulation

I Love Traffic: Price: $0.99
“Ready to make traffic flow? Take on the roads as you direct traffic through congested intersections and save drivers from utter peril. Feed cars, trucks, and ambulances through dangerous intersections and conquer the road from a different angle. Bring on the challenge from the original Flash game, now on your iPhone and iPod Touch!”

Safari Sunrise: Price: $1.99
“Play Multimedia’s Casino slot games on your iPhone and iPod Touch!Safari Sunrise is a 5-reel, 30-line game and features a Free Spin bonus that players won’t be able to stop playing! When three Bonus Symbols land scattered on reels 1, 3, and 5 the bonus is triggered and players are prompted to touch the screen to determine the number of free spins awarded and the bonus multiplier. Then the action begins! When three scattered bonus symbols land again during the free spin round, 8 more spins will be awarded. What makes Safari Sunrise unique/different? The level of detail in the art and the player interaction when determining the number of spins, the extra wild symbol, and the multiplier for the free spin bonus.”

Di-Fi: Price: $1.99
“Let’s carry your favorite 3D figures on iPhone and iPod touch!! You can customize the characters by a touch panel. They are not only fully-zoomable illustrations, but also you can find the exact camera angle. The characters hold 5 poses, and change them shaking the phone.”

Sports

NOTHING

Strategy

FluffyFarm: Price: $0.99
“From the creators of the top selling game Medieval comes Fluffy Farm. Fluffy Farm is a line-drawing game that will have your fingers flicking like mad! Enjoy 2 distinct game modes - Farm Mode & Time Challenge – as you eat a variety of mushrooms to grow your Fluffs and collect items to meet your goals before time runs out! Simply drag your finger on the screen to direct your Fluffs around - the controls couldn’t be more simple. Be careful that they don’t run into each other though….when Fluffs cross paths one of them gets eaten! Challenge yourself with this unique game as you try to manage a growing number of Fluffs at the same time. How many can you control at once? Feeling competitive? Your high-scores are tracked online so you can be certain you’re the king of the hill. Start farming today!”

Cheeky Chimps: Price: $0.99
“Let’s help the monkey get more banana. Move the monkey Icon to catch banana. There will be different surprise banana and some extra items too. those items will help or stop you getting more banana. Relax and enjoy the well designed levels! This game has been carefully crafted to be Fun for any age. Enjoy this easy-to-control game that utilizes the accelerometer inside your iphone. have some fun.”

Trivia

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER? 2010: Price: $2.99
“Go To The Head Of The Class. Based on the hit show, ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER?™ 2010 features all the charm, humor and deceptively difficult questions that make the television show a household name. In the game, players are asked a series of up to eleven questions ranging from subjects like U.S. history, math or social studies. Perform well, and you can work you way to the $1 million question. Choke and you’ll be forced to utter the unenviable phrase “I am not smarter than a 5th grader.”

Xmas Crackers: Price: $1.99
“Christmas is a time of festive fun and of course Xmas Crackers! This Christmas swap those traditional throw away crackers for a cracker with a difference…that’s right this application turns your iPhone and iPod Touch into a Xmas Cracker! Download this festive Application to instantly convert your device into a Xmas Cracker, with all the usual goodies inside.”

Numeric Memory: Price: $0.99
“Blow your mind memorizing the numbers in this game that will make your head explode. The numbers appear on the screen for 1 second. When they disappear click on them in the right order, from the lowest to the highest . The difficulty increases with each level.”

Word

Scanline
“Scanline is an easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master lateral thinking puzzle game that asks players to identify letters, numbers, shapes and symbols as they scroll behind a single pixel high viewing area. Players must interpret the moving pattern they are able to see and visualize the complete object. 100 levels of increasing difficulty provide a quick learning curve at the beginning and a challenge for players who make it to the higher levels.”

iPhone/iPod Touch Links

Appletell: [Intellivision Lives! on your iPhone; interview with Keith Robinson] [Macintosh/iPhone software update roundup - November 20, 2009] [Free Apps roundup for November 20th, 2009]