Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is by far one of my favorite card games. It’s right up there with 7 Wonders and Bang! Board Game Geek has awarded Ascension: CotG 3.5 stars out of 5 and the good news is that they full game is now available on iOS for a mere USD $4.99. The physical game costs USD $27.99.

Ascension: CotG is a deck building game for 2-4 players. The game was designed by a handful of Magic: The Gathering Pros and they wanted to build a fast-paced card game that didn’t rely on who had the better deck beforehand. Instead, players start off in equal footing and build the deck as they play. Winning entails computing the sum of Rune points acquired from creature kills and points from the types of cards you built your deck with during the game It’s good news to those that don’t want to spend a ton of money on booster packs and special cards as the core game is pretty much a standalone set good for 2-4 players already.

On to the iOS version. I can pretty much sum up the experience of CotG as quite similar to playing the actual card game. The UI is very well thought through with each card having a zoom in function anytime during a game session is ongoing. As the screen of your iOS device is limited, the board allows you to touch areas of the screen to pull out your summoned Constructs, view the Void and discard deck (you can hold and drag to see everything scroll by!) as well as see summaries of other player decks such as the number of constructs in play, number of Runes acquired and so on.

The game features both offline and online play. You can hold several offline games simultaneously as well as queue up in gaming lobbies for multiple games to see which one you can get into first. Because CotG is fast-paced by nature, wait times are never annoying.

Bottomline
Ascension: CotG is a definite MUST HAVE for the iOS. If you’ve never heard of the game till this review, you STILL should pick it up and I guarantee you that this will be one of the most played games on your iPad or iPhone.

[Download Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer]

As a child many of you probably enjoyed a great deal of time with Hasbro’s View-Master, I know I did.  The device, since retails sales of the device began in 1939, has been a toy providing hours of fun for those desiring to view 3-D images on paper disks inserted into the View-Master.  Starting April 3, the iconic View-Master will add a high-tech sibling to its family with the introduction of the My3D Handheld Viewer.

Hasbro will begin selling the My3D Handheld Viewer for $35 at Target, with other retail establishments gaining access to the device in June.

The viewer is an iPhone and iPod Touch accessory allowing users to view 3D content on their phone’s 2D display.  For your money one receives the viewer, a mount for your iOS device, and once added to your iPhone or iPod Touch, allows for a binocular-like viewing for 3D content.

Accompanying the hardware launch, Hasbro will release 3D apps in order to make one’s purchase of the My3D Handheld Viewer worth every penny.

The binoculars allow an iPhone or iPod Touch to slide into it when holding them.  Unfortunately users can only view 3D content, meaning you cannot interact with your iOS device’s screen.  To do anything requiring touching of the screen the My3D Handheld Viewer has to be removed.

While a novel concept for sure, the fact that one can only view content at this point makes it seem like an odd-looking iOS accessory made most for children.  That said, the apps, not the device itself, will ultimately determine the usefullness and popularity of the My3D Handheld Viewer.

Will you purchase one of the devices for your iPhone or iPod Touch?  If so, do you think you’ll have as much fun as the gentleman below appears to be having when using the My3D Handheld Viewer?

Do you love your iOS device(s)?  Have you longed for the ability to control a robot tank with your device?  If you answered yes to the aforementioned questions, then your dreams will soon become true.

For iOS device owners Desk Pets has created the TankBot, small, robotic, tank which can be controlled using any iOS device can be yours for only $20.

To control the miniature tank robot, simply connect the accompanying dongle into one’s iOS device headphone jack and that’s it!  TankBot will be instantly under the control of you and your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

The features of Tankbot include:

• Use of Apple’s accelerometer technology allowing one to control the device with a tilt of one’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch
• TankBot’s autonomous mode uses infrared sensors to navigate mazes, avoid obstacles, and react with military precision
• A free roaming mode with tank sounds
• A retractable USB charger built into body of the product, 30 minutes of charge = 15 minutes of play
• A flashing heartbeat eyes pulse when robot is at idle
• Each color (orange, blue, black, and green) operates on own frequency, allowing for multiplayer racing and battling

Desk Pets’ TankBot will make its first appearance in public at New York City’s Toy Fair which runs February 13-16.  Unfortunately for those wanting one of the devices, TankBots will not be available for purchase until June.

When the TankBot is made available, is the device something you will purchase for yourself or as gift for another?

Remember that awesome Xbox Live Arcade game from last summer called Shadow Complex? It was a fantastic shooter that all but redefined the concept of side-scrolling. I was fortunate enough to be given an early preview of the game at Comic-Con last year, and then the good folks at Chair Entertainment, who built the game, even comped me with a review code to download the game. Sadly, the blog I was writing for went under shortly thereafter, and I never got to write my review of Shadow Complex. But it would have been glowing, I tell you. It was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I had all year long.

Chair Entertainment, via their distributor, Epic Games (the folks behind Unreal and Gears of War), has announced that its next game is moving to an entirely new platform: iOS. Dubbed Infinity Blade, Apple’s first Unreal-powered iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch is a first-person shooter/role-playing game hybrid. Apple fans got their first glimpse of the game back at the iOS 4 keynote address, where Steve Jobs & Co. unveiled a little look at Unreal running on the multitouch mobile platform. And I think pretty much everyone was taken aback by how great the engine looked, how smoothly it flowed, and how easy it was to manipulate and control.

Chair’s first details about Infinity Blade state that it’s essentially a sword-fighting game, where you are genuinely in control of your sword and how it is maneuvered by the main character. You’ll be able to lunge, parry, block, and all those other fancy sword-fighting moves, all with simple swipe controls. Like Shadow Complex, there will be tons of exploration available in the game’s castles-and-dungeons fantasy realm, where helpful items like potions and gear can be found. And as you can see from these screenshots, the game looks absolutely incredible. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to run an FPS on iOS with that many polygons and high-res textures.

Infinity Blade will also be supported with lots of post-release content that Chair is planning on releasing on a regular basis, entirely for free. The game is expected to be available to purchase (at a yet-to-be-determined price) this holiday season.

Follow @FGgamer on Twitter for the latest gaming news.

Mimeo (even the name) started as a Mario clone with a twist: instead of power-ups affecting the player, they affect the entire game world. A story and mythos quickly developed. The so-called Mimeoverse consists of two 16-bit demiverses sharing 32-bits between them. When the evil Kleptopus King, an 8-bit octopus with an inferiority complex, discovers a portal into Mimeo’s realm and begins to syphon off its bits, Mimeo is sucked in and down-sampled to 2-bit. So begins Mimeo’s quest to restore balance to the demiverses.

I said it before I’m not a gamer, up until today I have owned one game console and that was the NES. The first Mario Bros. was and still is my favorite game. So needless to say I’m looking forward to Mimeo. I have no idea if I’ll be able to play it well on the iPhone as up until know the few games I have I’m no table to play them “fluently”.

Check out this demo on how the game is played.

Shaun keeps a development weblog detailing the progress of the game and the technical details that are involved in creating this game. Besides, designing, programming and creating the scenario, Shaun also composes and produces the music himself. If you browse the development blog you will find some sound bits.

For a non-gamer I have been keeping up to date with the development progress. Although less with iPad version. I just don’t see the iPad as a gaming device, it is so big, and with my small hands I wouldn’t manage to use the controls without dropping the iPad. In any case I’m looking forward to the release of Mimeo so I have more to do on the iPhone when underway or lying in bed in the morning then just reading email, feeds, tweets and news.

Game website: Mimeoverse: Mimeo and the Kleptopus King

iPhone and iPod Touch users will get OS 4 around late June, while iPad users will have to wait until sometime this Fall.

This is such a no-brainer for Apple, it’s a wonder they haven’t done it before now. iTunes offers more than 50,000 game apps, so Apple would be insane not to take this next logical step. It’ll all be done via a user interface that looks the same despite what game you’re playing, and can be accessed in-game without disrupting your progress.

Game Center is just one of seven major new “tentpole” features announced for iPhone OS 4, at an event today helmed by Apple founder Steve Jobs. Other OS 4 tentpoles include long-awaited multitasking capabilities between 3rd-party apps, folders for organizing apps, email enhancements, a new interactive advertising system called “iAd,” and more.

Having watched the coverage of today’s press conference, I’m kind of surprised at how Jobs downplayed the Game Center feature, in light of his obvious enthusiasm for other new stuff; his excitement over iAd was downright palpable. iAd will be a tremendous revenue stream for Apple, but Game Center has the potential to completely revolutionize gaming on the iPhone, increasing the popularity of the platform’s games and improving the overall quality of games available in the App Store.

Everyone’s favorite Sith Lord (like you were going to vote for someone else?) is now available in cuddly, cute, Hello-Kitty fashion with these new skins by Infectious. Dubbed the “pink.invader,” this skin is available in several different sticky flavors, for your lappy, iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Trapper-Keeper notebook. Alright, we made that last one up, but only because our Trapper Keeper had Optimus Prime on it, and it doesn’t get much more badass than that. Designer Michael Sison worked this bad boy up for Infectious, and he’s got another cool design too,  with retro Gameboy skins for the handhelds.

Now I get it; This particular skin may not be for everybody. That’s why you can check out the site and pick out anything else you’d rather have from their hundreds of designs, or create your own. There’s even some love for the Apple fanboys and girls out there, with special skins with the trademark glowing Apple logo cut out of the design. I’ve had dibs on this one for the past few months now, and someday I’m gonna get that thing. Alternatively, you can also just design your own, and have it look like whatever you want.

I can personally attest to the wear quality of these things, too. My wife picked up one over a year ago for her iPhone 3G, and it’s been holding strong ever since with no sign of wear and tear anywhere.

While not everyone might have a fascination for dictionaries, I suppose that we can all see the value in having one handy, especially for students. And for those who do not care much for the traditional “paper” dictionaries, the Oxford University Press is making an effort to reach out and share their expertise.

The Oxford UP has gotten together with WhiteParkBay.com to create versions of some of their most popular dictionaries for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Some of these dictionaries are:

-Oxford Dictionary of Politics
-Oxford Dictionary of Law
-Oxford Dictionary of Computing
-Oxford Dictionary of Music
-Oxford Dictionary of Business and Management.

You can see the complete list of specialized dictionaries at www.dictionaryapps.com.

The interface of the dictionaries is pretty cool, making full use of the features of the iPhone. For instance, turning the device horizontally or vertically allows you to have different views – either a list of entries or the main entry plus detailed information.

These dictionaries are available at the App Store for $14.99 each. Not bad! After all, you can’t put a price on learning!

It’s a prototype that allows Wolfenstein 3D to be controlled from a second device connected up using a crossover audio cable.

The Wolfenstick runs without having to jailbreak the iPhone and has been developed using the iPhone OS 2.0 AudioToolbox APIs. It shows off what’s possible now, as well as being a taster of some of the cool hardware mods that may be developed and released when iPhone OS 3.0 comes this summer.

Here’s a demo video of the Wolfenstick in action.

Seeing is believing, so without further a do:

It isn’t perfected yet, as you can see from the video, and there is no word if or when they’ll release the binaries or a file that you can use to install it on your iPod/iPhone. But given that they released the binaries for one of their previous games very recently, I think it’s quite likely that they will, or someone else will.

Releasing an iPhone version of the game is great for them as developers and great for the whole iPod SDK community, so it’s a win-win situation no matter what. I’m quite certain that we still have a lot to see from Apple and their touchscreen devices, and I can’t wait for it.

[Via Touchpodium]