1. Alive 4 Ever

I love the zombie genre. For a while, all the games I played were zombie-related games! Alive 4 Ever is a top view shoot ‘em up game, which sort of combines Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil and Gauntlet. In each mission you have a primary and secondary objective. As you complete missions, you earn credits to purchase additional weapons and also level up.

There’s also cooperative multiplayer over Bluetooth and WiFi, which is always fun when you have a buddy to shoot zombies with.

Get Alive 4 Ever on iTunes ($2.99)

2. Modern Combat : Sandstorm

Modern Combat : Sandstorm has one of the best controls I’ve ever played with in an iPhone game. This game was a pleasure to play : easy to control, and lots to shoot at and blow up. The game takes place in the Middle East, and you play a soldier who’s part of a hunt for a master terrorist.

The graphics and atmosphere are great. You have multiple choices of weapons that you can pick up within the game, and there are several different locations and scenarios from a hospital, to a truck chase, to exploring subterranean tunnels.

With the great controls, this would be an awesome multiplayer game — if only Gameloft can get the multiplayer working properly.

Get Modern Combat : Sandstorm on iTunes ($4.99)

3. Blades of Fury

Street Fighter is back! Well, actually no, but Blades of Fury is a good 3D arcade-style fighting game. It’s actually more like Soul Calibre than Street Fighter, but you get the drift. In Blades of Fury, you have a number of characters (and costumes) to choose from. There’s a story mode which gets repetitive, but you need to play it to unlock certain characters. The graphics are incredible, and the game uses a lot of short videos for cut scenes and KO moves.

You can play against friends over Bluetooth, which is cool.

Buy Blades of Fury from iTunes ($4.99)

4. Dungeon Hunter

If you like RPGs (role playing games) like Baldur’s Gate, then give Dungeon Hunter a try. Developer Gameloft calls Dungeon a “3D epic quest set in a dark fantasy world”. The graphics, sound and controls are well done. Even the storyline is quite decent, although it’s not always so straightforward. The game plays in a story mode, as you go to different locations to accomplish different missions.

There’s minimal replayability with Dungeon Hunter, but playing it will give you a “wow” feeling — when did the iPhone get to be such a good games machine?

Get Dungeon Hunter on iTunes ($4.99)

5. Eliminate Pro

I’ve had a lot of fun playing Eliminate Pro over the past few months. This was a widely anticipated game, and indeed developer ngmoco delivered what they promised. Eliminate Pro is a multiplayer first person shooter. You can play against friends or random strangers across the Internet, who are automatically matched to your skill level.

The frag sessions are pulse-pounding, frantic, fast paced, but frustratingly short. As long as you have a decent enough Internet connection, the game plays extremely well … which is amazing considering you may be playing against 3 other people who may be all over the globe. Since this game is designed from the start as multiplayer, you get all the usual leaderboards and bragging rights that come along with them.

The graphics are great. There’s lots of customization options, from weapons to armour to skins. Eliminate Pro is one of the first games that fully used the in-app feature to the max. You can have a perfectly ok gaming experience without spending any money, or you can get ahead faster by buying “power cells” which you can use to gain credits to upgrade your gear.

Get Eliminate Pro on iTunes (free)

So those are the 5 iPhone games that I have been playing over and over in 2009. What games have kept you up lately?

The Thanksgiving deals keep on coming. Software developer Pangea is having their Black Friday sale over at the Apple App Store. All their games are now at 99 cents each.

These are the games which are currently on offer :

Cro-Mag Rally, originally USD1.99, now USD0.99.
Enigmo, originally USD1.99, now USD0.99
Billy Frontier, originally USD7.99, now USD0.99
Bugdom 2, originally USD7.99, now USD0.99
Nanosaur 2, originally USD7.99. now USD0.99

The offer is valid until December 2nd 2008.

On September 9th, Apple introduced more than just updated iPods. It also started positioning the iPod touch and the iPhone as a credible portable gaming platform. After dominating the mobile music player scene, Apple is moving into the territory of established players like Nintendo and Sony.

How does Apple measure up? The Nintendo DS retails around US$130, and the entry level PSP sets you back at $170. Apple’s lowest priced offering would be the 8GB iPhone 3G ($200 with contract) and the 8GB iPod touch ($230).

The iPhone Blog has a couple of posts comparing the iPhone to the Nintendo DS and Sony Playstation Portable (PSP). In both cases, the iPhone compares favourably with the dedicated gaming devices.

Hardware-wise, Apple’s offering are just ok in terms of power. The iPod touch is slimmer and sexier than anything else available, but it’s not a device which is designed for games. There are really two innovations that Apple brought to the table : incorporating an accelerometer, and smart pricing of applications and games.

The accelerometer has given rise to many different type of innovative controls. From straight up racing like Crash Bandicoot and Cro Mag Rally, tilt-fests like Labrynth and Super Monkey Ball, shaking in Motion Poker X, gestures in Star Wars : Force Unleashed, flying in the X-Plane flight simulator, swimming in Spore Origins and a simple tapping to music in Tap Tap Revenge, developers are really embracing this new style of gaming.

The previous paragraph mentions just 9 games from a very active developer community, for a platform which did not even exist two years ago. We have well known games brands like Electronic Arts, Sega and Gameloft as well as one-man shows like MooCowMusic (who does the terrific Band).

The other smart thing that works for the App Store is the pricing. Whether this was planned / dictated by Apple or simply the natural growth of the market, we have seen premium games max out at US$10, compared to twice or more for other platforms. We have also seen prices dropping to even more reasonable levels in just a few months (e.g. Cro Mag Rally, which was introduced at $10, is now just $2).

Apple makes it so easy to browse and evaluate (through peer reviews, not trials) games through its App Store, now standard on all iPhone and iPod touch devices.

In a relatively short time, Apple has managed to grow a customer base (to probably more than the targeted 10 million this year), a developer community with thousands of applications and millions of downloads.

Nintendo and Sony may still be safe now, but how long will that security last?