EA is placing all of their games on sale for $0.99 as part of their EA Daily Deals campaign. If your holiday bank cash reserve have dwindled with all the Christmas shopping, here’s a great, inexpensive way to reward yourself. And if you happen to be one of the lucky ones given a new iOS more »

Tetris is a game that defies explanation. More than 20 years after it was originally released, it’s still immensely popular on nearly every device that has a screen big enough to support its relatively simple gameplay. And maybe that’s its appeal; that it’s so easy to just pick up and play. Tetris for iPad further reinforces why we still love Tetris; because it’s so damn fun. But Tetris is more than fun, it’s compelling.

While Walt Disney World certainly is the place where dreams come true, it’s not the most tech friendly place; WiFi access runs $10 a day, which after three days would pay for your 3G access from AT&T for a month with a 3G iPad. Or, you could rough it with just your iPhone. I chose the latter, and these 3G friendly apps helped me do so without shaking in the corner as a result of my Internet addiction. I call them “My Essential Apps.”

I don’t pretend to know much about the inner workings of Freeverse, but I can say this; they like their labs puzzling, and their monkeys burning. Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab came out for the Macintosh back in 2000, and it was pretty good. Although it featured various single player games (most notable of which was “Zen” mode, in which the tone settled down and the blocks never sped up), it really shined in multiplayer versus mode. Here, it was no longer enough to just align the descending balls; you needed to line then up in a certain way so you could send “bad” balls to your opponent. The games were more intense, more fun, and (thank heavens) shorter.

It’s not at all surprising, then, that Freeverse selected Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab (BMPL) as one of their first Mac to iPhone ports. The iPhone screen orientation is perfect for falling blocks and balls and what have you, and the graphics are well suited to the iPhone’s capabilities. It’s just a great match. And yet, BMPL for the iPhone/iPod touch left me wanting.

You may remember my favorite Tetris clone, Tris, that was released in the App Store in the second week of August. In my opinion, it is the best Tetris clone available, and quite possibly the best free game on the App Store as of this writing. But, that’s not going to last. No, soon it will not be the best free game on the App Store; mostly because it won’t be available.

Find out why after the break.

The list of apps that are only available for jailbroken iPhones has gotten one shorter with the release of Tris at the App Store. OK, so Tris won’t do any of the things Apple won’t allow that some jailbroken apps will, but it’s a blast to play. Plus, you don’t have to jailbreak your iPhone. I, for one, would never do that (…again..at least, I don’t want to…yet).

Tris is free, open source, and awesome.

Details after the break.