The Arham Horror Toolkit

Things are really simple with this one. If you love your Arkham Horror boardgame, can spare 3$ and own an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch you simply have to grab the excellent Arkham Horror Toolkit. It's an amazing collection of tools ranging from character manager and dice roller to an incredibly handy Location Deck and map thingy, that will easily enhance your game. You can find out more here.

Sierra Classics on iPad

iPad gamers will finally be able to play classic Sierra adventures for free via the utterly excellent sarien.net. Oh, and you'll be playing them in multiplayer (!) and with a magnificent new interface. Available games include Gold Rush!, Leisure Suit Larry 1, Space Quest I & II and the first three King's Quest games. Horray and hoorah!

Super Soviet Missile Mastar

Oh, yes! The creators of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, the cuddly Behemoth, will be bringing Super Soviet Missile Mastar to your iPhone and/or iPad. It will be a free, humorous and utterly wild mini-game. Find out more about it here, right after you read these wise words from the developer:

In our very first foray into iOS development, we are bringing Super Soviet Missle Mastar into the palms of your hands. The much beloved and not at all offensive mini game from Alien Hominid HD will let you pilot your missile into the capitalist pigs, dodging the usual helicopters, planes, and pesky birds. Assuming Apple doesn’t employ anti-air measures during the approval process, we expect to launch this into the universe sometime in the next month, for FREE! SSMM will push your iPhone to the edge of its capabilities with state-of-the art 8-bit graphics! Remember, in Soviet Russia game plays you.

Deadly Eye Wiz

Time for another freebie for you dear open-source Wiz: Deadly Eye. It's a rather traditional and definitely frenetic shoot-'em-up, that sports lovely 16-bit era graphics and a ton of power-ups. Oh, and when I say frenetic, I do mean frenetic.

Minotaur Rescue

Jeff Minter's legendary Llamasoft has finally released the eye-melting, old-school arcade game Minotaur Rescue for the wide range of Apple's iThings. Expect a relentless, psychedelic experience with a ridiculously low price and surreal enemies. Find out more here. Minotaur Rescue is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad.

Indie iPhone Holiday Sale

Well, happy holidays everyone, and should you own an iPhone you are in for a treat, as the Indie iPhone Holiday Sale can be grabbed here for less than a dollar. Said indie bundle comes packed with six games, including the excellent Canabalt and Solipskier, and will even donate 1/3 of its earnings to Child's Play. Hurry up and get it.

iPad Games for Cats

Yes, it does sound ridiculous but Hiccup's aptly named iPad app Game for Cats is actually intended for your cat. Also for your enjoyment, as cats do tend to be very silly around it, as the video posted below supposedly proves. Grab the Game for Cats here. It's free, it is.

Review: Atari Greatest Hits: Volume I (DS)

There comes a time when every console gets the retro compilation that will allow gamers to enjoy Atari's deeply retro classics from the late 70s and the early 80s, and this time has finally come for the Nintendo DS with the release of Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 1. It's a budget priced retro collection sporting 50 games that were released for the Atari 2600 and for the now (mostly) defunct arcades.

The games selection is pretty impressive, including among others the arcade versions of Asteroids, Pong, Centipede, Tempest and Missile Command, along with the 2600 versions of Adventure, Outlaw, Gravitar, Basketball, Football and a few dozen other games. Unfortunately Activision's classics -especially Pitfall- haven't been included, whereas some of the games thrown in are beyond terrible and badly aged (think Slot Machine or 3D Tic-Tac-Toe), though generally speaking this particular cartridge hasn't left my DS for the past 10 days I apparently needed to prepare this review. Don't think I'll be playing anything else on it for quite some time too, as Atari's Greatest Hits is indeed brilliant.

Asteroids and Tempest, just to name a couple of games, are as addictive and incredibly fun to play as ever and the simplistic sounds and visuals do help bring the gameplay forth. As for the emulation -and presentation- of the games it is, well, spot-on. Both screens of the DS are used to allow you to fiddle with your virtual 2600's switches or to display the marquee of the arcade game you are playing. Oh, yes, and each game comes with a complete manual too.

To make a sweet deal even sweeter Atari has also thrown in the military training version of Battlezone (boo-hiss for militarism), the 2600 prototype of Tempest, a few vintage ads and more than a few other digital memorabilia, to complement the single-card download multiplayer most games seem to support.

Verdict: If you are into old games and/or have fond memories of Atari's classics you simply have to grab Atari Greatest Hits: Volume 1 on the DS.

Puzzle Agent HD Lite (iPad)

If you haven't tried Puzzle Agent just yet, you are definitely missing out on a truly unique and incredibly quirky puzzle game that sometimes feels something like Fargo meets Twin Peaks with a pinch of Telltale humour. What's more you can now grab the brand new Lite version of the game for free and see just how well suited this little beauty is for your iPad. Just follow the App Store link.

Caanoo PC Engine emulation

The PC Engine (a.k.a. the TurboGrafx-16 in the US) was a particularly powerful 8-bit games console with 16-bit bits, that was both incredibly popular in Japan and a brilliant platform for arcade conversions. It even managed a couple handheld versions of itself, though you really don't have to go looking for them. There's a much cheaper alternative, as the open-source Caanoo handheld can now emulate the PC Engine for free, via the just released Caanoo-HUGO. Download it here.