Welcome back for another round-up of new games that have been hitting the App Store. As usual, we’ve sifted through the app store daily so you don’t have to, and this batch of new releases is much better than the past couple of round-ups, including titles from small to big gaming companies: Vivid games, Kairosoft, Imangi studios, EA, and Chillingo.

Angry Birds is a quirky physics puzzle. You control a slingshot. Your ammo is a group of specialized birds, each with its own abilities. One can speed up in air, one can expload, one lays an explosive egg, one multiplies in air, etc. So what are you aiming for? Green pigs. You’re trying to kill them. Hold on a second, no one is tripping here, I swear. Angry Birds is one of those games that sounds ridiculous in description but is tons of fun after you start playing it.

Apple has released yet another iPod Touch advertisement. As is typical of all Apple iPhone and iPod Touch ads, this one features that perfect hand on a white background with nothing but the iPod Touch. This time around the ad has been titled “More Fun” and contains the background music of Franz Ferdinand’s “No You Girls” (look to see that one on the iTunes list any day now). The ad focuses on the concept of gaming again and features a variety of games on the App Store.

Payback is a Grand Theft Auto style game for the iPhone. It’s a pretty big game, in terms of content and disk space. It’s 221MB! That’s a pretty good MB to dollar ratio, but the real question is…can I run around town with a gun, steal some cars and wreak havoc? Yes. You can.

This week saw a surprising amount of quality 3D games hit the App Store. Plus, Apple loosened up on the internet browsers, though you likely already have Google’s fake Chrome that they snuck in a while ago. This week: Instant Motivator Free, Burning Tires 3D Lite, Action Bowling Free, Toy Tanks 3D Lite, Edge Browser and Wellness.

It’s Macworld week, possibly one of the worst weeks ever for a developer to try to get an app released during. But, as always, some made it through.

• FaceDouble Celebrity Look Alike Lite
• Cubes Free
• Ski and Snow Reports
• Mancala: FS5 (FREE)
• Jew’s Harp
• Backgrounds
• Pandora

Happy New Year! I think this year I’ll resolve to keep my iPhone’s home screens a little more organized, though, like most New Year resolutions, I doubt it’s really going to happen. And more free apps probably aren’t helping. Here’s my list to feed the habit.

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Wordplay Lite
• Travelo mini – San Francisco ‘09 featuring SOMA
• GW Helmet
• Polarize
• iSteam

We’re coming up on the end of 2008, and what a year it has been. Thanks to the introduction of the App Store, and some amazing developers, I’ve been able to provide a list of noteworthy free apps ever week. For this, I am thankful.

And just like clockwork, here is this weeks list, the last for the year 2008.

Thanks for reading.

This week, I refrained from picking any apps from the overwhelming number of flatulence related apps that all of the sudden burst onto the App Store. You’ll thank me for this later.

• iMacworld
• HP iPrint Photo
• BilliardsLite
• Chase Mobile
• Awkward Silence
• DynoBox
• Google Mobile App

The Evil Dr Gray has kidnapped your friends and taken over the planet! His dastardly plan of turning the entire planet Gray is almost complete. Stop him!

The idea of BurnBall is to tilt the iPhone or iPod touch to move a red ball (you) around the screen while trying to avoid the black robots. Once you have covered 75% of the board, you move to the next level. Each level increases in difficulty by either adding more robots or by adding a white robot to the mix. The black robots cannot move onto ground you have covered, but, in a menacing fashion, the white robots can go anywhere to get you. Bad robots.