The great thing about LittleWing pinball sims is that they could, for the most part, exist in your local truckstop. They play like real machines, forgoing lasers and warps and such nonsense for the most realistic ball physics you’re going to find on that side of the computer monitor. Such is the case with MAD Daedalus, their 11th pinball sim, now available for Mac and PC.

After an uncharacteristically long absence, pinball sim giant LittleWing has announced the release of their 11th game: Mad Daedalus, a sequel to their 1994 classic Loony Labyrinth. Although Mad Daedalus comes with a fairly fantastic story centered around spaceships and ancient civilizations, it’s reflected through pure, natural pinball. Their games could easily be real machines found in arcades, restaurants and truckstops, and they’d always be worth your quarters.

Last month, I launched a new Appletell series about games we’d love to see on the iPhone. My first article focused on LittleWing Co. Ltd. and their history of outstanding pinball games for the Mac. LittleWing and pinball seem a perfect match for the iPhone, after all. Good news, everyone; I received an e-mail this weekend from the good folks at LittleWing, and it seems they agree.

Without intending disrespect to app developers, I’m wondering why the iPhone doesn’t have the type of game I can’t wait to get home to play. There are no Fire Emblems, no Legends of Zeldas, and no Resident Evils. In this series of articles, I want to take a look at some games and developers who would help push the iPhone in the right direction if they were to pick up their iPhone 3.0 SDK. And I’m going to start out in the least likely of places: pinball. Specifically, LittleWing.

Kind of sounds like a bad PBS kids’ cartoon doesn’t it? Well, put away thoughts of happy dragons and rainbow skies, because this is all about the game of the gods: pinball. For those who’ve never heard of LittleWing (and really, why would you have?), they’re a Japanese company that’s been making some fantastic pinball more »