Pac-Man 256 headed iOS's way

A new version of Pac-Man to celebrate the game's 35th birthday will arrive in summer, playing on the game's legendary bug, with a host of new features and updates to bring the pizza-shaped hero to a new audience.

Star Drift brings classic shooter action to iOS

Another indie team formed from the ashes of UK dev legends Rare is out there doing it for themselves. Squarehead's first effort is now live on the app store with the impressive retro-modern Star Drift. Levels are procedurally generated to keep things fresh with a David Wise soundtrack.

It brings to mind Flow, Gravity Crash and a few others in this quick peek. There's a unique upgrade system to help you along, with various powers, upgrades and some virus-laden tokens to avoid. Star Drift is only a 70Mb download for iOS 7 devices. It is optimised for iPhone 5 and up. The game is just 79p on the store during its launch window.

StarCaptain goes bouncing across the iPad

Not too sure if I'd actually try this Swedish arcade puzzle game, it looks fun enough, but that short-range bounce mechanic as you jump across close-together stars really looks ugly and jerky. Anyway, the game is out now if you want to give the otherwise sweet visuals a go.



You navigate the spaceship by jumping on stars, trying to find you way through the star clusters, while saving fuel; avoiding supernovas and using the galaxies black holes to gain more speed. With over 75 levels of various difficulty you will learn all there is to learn about saving fuel on your future intergalactic space travels! The game was developed by a small independent team during this summer, and the early prototype and pitch won the Game Concept Challenge 2012.

Hyperwave brings a new look to old school shooters

Hyperwave from CatfishBlues brings a fresh view and look to classic arcade shooters and throws in a couple of fun modes to broaden the entertainment value. It offers HD graphics on retina displays and a host of features for just 99c/69p:

• Deep and innovative gameplay, attack and defend at the same time
• Stunning 2.5D neon-style graphics, effects and animated backgrounds
• Several exciting techno musics
• Arcade mode with 50 different waves
• Infinity mode for an endless challenge
• 12 vulcan upgrades and 5 different special weapons
• 3 devastating special-powers and smart friends drones to command
• Wide variety of enemies to face, each with its own peculiar behavior
• Game Center achievements and global leaderboards support
• Supports the new Game Center Challenges introduced with iOS 6

Sega brings Zaxxon and Crazy Taxi to iOS

Zaxxon was pretty rubbish in my mind, but I had only played the Spectrum version. Crazy Taxi on the other hand was one of the best Dreamcast games and has been wrecked in recent revisits due to poor licensing of the music or crap conversions.



Both are coming to iOS soon, and although the clip is really short it looks like this version will come with the Offspring tracks that made the original so fun. Zaxxon has been seriously upgrade to be nothing like the original, which I hope is buried in there somewhere. Still, if you like the inner-Death Star bits from the Star Wars games, this should appeal.

Pitfall revival runs right across iOS devices

Pitfall is one of the original platform games from Activision on the Atari VCS and has already had one come back as a 64-bit side scroller on the Jaguar. Now it's entering the 3D age on the iPad and iPhone via a whole new perspective (that's just a little bit Temple Run).




Developed by new studio Blast Furnace, it offers various perspectives on the "staying alive" action with whip jumps, motorbikes and much more required to keep on the straight and breathing.