See, now here’s the great thing about the Mac App Store. Games long past, games you may have missed are showing up again as attractively priced downloads. And although some may call them dated, that doesn’t change the fact that what was fun six years ago is still fun today. The latest example of this is Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood, a real-time strategy game from Runesoft.

Freeverse may no longer be concentrating on Mac games, but they’re at least making their older games easier and cheaper to buy. They’ve just announced that Hordes of Orcs 2—Developed by MrJoy, Inc. for Mac OS X—is now available on the Mac App Store. “The Glowing Portal of Really Bad Things That We Should Have Bricked-Up a Long Time Ago” has been foolishly un-bricked again, and the Orcs are back, taking Tower Defense gaming to new levels of intensity.

This week is all about games. Games, games, games and more games. In fact, I only managed to find three notable apps that aren’t games this week, one of which is a utility for keeping score…likely in some sort of game. But no worries, because games are awesome. And what better way to waste your weekend away? That’s right. Let’s get to it.

There were orcs, and there were hordes of them, and now they’re back, angrier and hungrier than ever before. MrJoy, Inc., and Freeverse, Inc., have announced Hordes of Orcs 2 for Mac OS X and PC, elevating Tower Defense gaming to new levels of intensity. “The Glowing Portal of Really Bad Things That We Should Have Bricked-Up a Long Time Ago” has been foolishly un-bricked again, and the Orcs are back…along with shitake mushrooms and dung.

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.

Big news this morning is that Freeverse has been bought out by games publisher ngmoco following a major infusion of funding for the later company. It’s a smart purchase: Freeverse has made several games for the App Store which turn up in the Top Picks section, but Mac users of another decade will remember them as the makers of oddball games such as Burning Monkey Solitaire and more offbeat “toys.”

Know what you forgot to do? Send out Christmas cards. But there’s no need for excuses. Make it look as if you meant to forget because you planned to send out a Christmas comic instead. More personal than a greeting card and shorter than a form letter (I think…I never actually read them), you can easily create and share a professional looking Christmas comic with Freeverse’s Comic Life Deluxe Edition. Here’s how.

Augmented reality. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, get there. It’s a fairly new trend in games in which the computer generated graphics are laid on top of what you actually see around you. There are other more detailed and possibly more accurate definitions, but forget about them. What matters here is that augmented reality games are starting to surface on the iPhone, and we’re going to take a look at two of the first: Fairy Trails and Arcade Reality.

Skee-Ball is that game where you roll balls up a ramp in an attempt to get them into various rings for high point values, but Freeverse is never content to just leave things as they are. So, they’ve added multiple play methods, in-air ball control, various goals to reach (hit each ring in one game, get a certain number of points, get nothing but 20s, etc.), an online leaderboard, and the ability to exchange fake tickets for fake prizes. As a result, Skee-Ball is likely to stay in your game rotation longer than you’d expect.

I’ve always enjoyed flying games. I’ve also always hated them. Total ambivalence. I love the action and feel of flying a plane, provided I don’t have to actually learn anything in order to fly it. I don’t want realism or rudders or wind speed gauges, I just want to turn, dive and blow stuff up. Thankfully, a few iPhone developers agree with me, and this iPhone flight sim dogfight will determine which will rule the skies over Cupertino: Top Gun, iBomber, or Allied Aces: Stunt Pilot.