Let’s take a break from all the CES news tonight to talk about a cartoon bird. Considering the way Hollywood runs these days, I’m guessing it won’t be long before we’ve got a live action Woody Woodpecker movie coming, likely with Vin Diesel as the woodpecker and Jonah Hill as Chilly Willy. If you’d rather not wait for that (and really, you shouldn’t), you can play Chillingo’s new Woody Wookpecker game for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Contre Jour manages to be dark, whimsical, and elegant all in one ever-so-strange package. It’s a beautiful game, and one that doesn’t quite fit the App Store mode. That said, it’s another good sign that devs are starting to branch out creatively in the casual game genre. They can’t all be vector-like cartoon graphics in a rainbow barrage of color, right?

I like to think that if I were alive during that time of walking skeletons, giant spiders, evil wizards and such, that I, too, would have looked good running around shirtless, swinging a battle-axe. But such a time never existed, so I have to content myself with playing games such as The Relic, a universal hack and slash arcade action game for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

Chillingo is one of the larger and more respected sellers of iDevice games in the App Store. And now, they’re bringing that gaming goodness to the Macintosh. The company has announced the launch of the classic dungeon-crawling adventure, Sword of Fargoal Legends, and espionage puzzle-adventure, Secret Agents!, for Apple’s new Mac App Store. Future Mac titles, including Cogs and iBomber Defense, will roll out in the coming months.

The eternal struggle of Man is expressed in many ways: vs. nature, vs. society, or vs. Man himself. And now game-maker Chillingo allows you to explore the nature of universal conflict by battling vector-based shapes, and also Cooties. Whether your tastes run to cute-and-cuddly germs or old school arcade graphics, there’s an iPad game for you in Infinity Field or Cooties.

Tower Defense games generally aren’t my thing for much the same reasons that I could never get into Missile Command, Asteroids, or sweeping the floor at Dairy Queen. The whole, “if you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean” theory was (and continues to be) lost on me. I don’t like games that simply require us to clean the screen, then move along to the next. But Defender Chronicles HD manages to be a bit more unique by adding a story and some RPG elements.

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.

For those who played part 1 and are wondering if part 2 is worth it, yes, it is. The puzzles continue to be fairly well thought out and logicalNavigating the locations continues to be my major issue, as the dark graphics and occasionally odd orientations to cause confusion. But the story and acting are both pretty good (some of the acting is a bit dry, but you get used to it), so you won’t get bored. Well, provided you didn’t get bored with part 1.

Apple only last week started accepting iPad optimized app submissions, so who knows if our favorite games will be ready to go by April 3rd? Of course, that doesn’t prevent us from getting our hopes up. Last week, I offered a list of five games I’ve played on the iPhone that I’m now excited about playing on the iPad. In this article, I’ll list the five I’ve not yet played but certainly will when (if) an iPad version is made available.

I’m happy to see more adventure games being released for the iPhone and iPod touch. They’re well suited for these devices in regards to both graphics and controls. A prime example of this is Dracula: The Path of the Dragon – Part 1 from Chillingo. It’s the first of a three part series, and it does a great job of laying the groundwork for adventure games to come.