Apple App Store gaming update for the week of July 27 to August 2, 2009

The Apple App Store gaming update is Gamertell’s weekly look at the previous week’s Apple App Store game releases. We cover them all – good and not so good – in their respective categories with a breakdown of the great games and the free games right where you want ‘em, at the top and in your face. The list is available every Monday, right as you are about to start that long work week.

Hands down, this week’s top pick is Space Invaders Infinity Gene. Imagine, Space Invaders and Rez having a love child and that’s pretty much what you can expect. But if Space Invaders isn’t your kind of thing, there are plenty of other games to keep you entertained:

What’s Free

Texas Pick’Em
“Improve your Texas hold ‘em game with “Texas Pick ‘Em”, a new, fast-paced game based on Texas hold ‘em. A fun way to increase your Poker IQ, learn the best starting hands, what their percentages are to win the hand, and how they hold up after the FLOP, the TURN and the RIVER. Earn bonus points as you race against the clock. Choose your cards carefully, because three strikes and you’re out! And don’t worry about Bad Beats: in Texas Pick ‘Em, they are good (you get an extra strike credit in order to extend your game).”

Music Library Quiz Lite
“Do you really know the music you listen to or do you absently listen to it? Are you a fan who knows everything about his favourite artists?
With Music Library Quiz you will test yourself with the songs of your iPod library. Music Library Quiz, graphically wonderful and quickly playable, will start the songs of your iPod library, contained in your iPhone or iPod touch, and will ask you to choose, among some possible answers, the title of the song, the title of the album or even the author. If in your library you also have the covers, you will be tested also on those! This is the free version of Music Library Quiz. It’s limited to 12 questions for each game.”

Hidato: Puzzle Pack 1 Lite
“A new challenger to the Sudoku throne has arrived! HIDATO, already a worldwide sensation, is now available for iPhone and iPod Touch! Already found in newspapers, books, magazines, calendars and more, Hidato is fast becoming the hottest puzzle addiction. With its simple concept and deep strategy, anyone can pick up and play a Hidato Puzzle.”

What’s New

Action

Monkey Party: Price: $0.99
“Your town has recently organized a fun fair event. The organizers of the fun fair brought along a group of intelligent monkeys which will participate in all the competitions. As a vivid fan of fun fairs, you and your friends decided to participate in some of the game competitions which the organizers have planned in the event.”

Space Invaders Infinity Gene: Price: $4.99
“That legendary shooter, “Space Invaders” has evolved once again with an unprecedented new system! The game starts off looking like the classic “Space Invaders”. But the more you play, the more the game “evolves”. Unlock new stages and new system features for a whole new shooting game experience! Build your own evolutionary tree!”

Minigore: Price: $0.99
“Minigore is a 3D survival shooter for the iPhone and iPod touch. The game is all about John Gore, a little square fellow, who finds himself surrounded by the furries – hairy, round creatures with particularly sharp teeth. Your mission is to defend John at all cost from these creatures.”

Adventure

NOTHING

Arcade

Lifeboat: Price: $0.99
“Captain Rickety’s ship the S.S. Anchor has set sail into some of the most treacherous waters known to man and his ship is not up to the task. It’s up to you to save the passengers as they topple overboard and into briny water. But don’t you worry; there are lifeboats at your disposal. Try and rescue those poor souls before they drown and keep the ship afloat for as long as you can! You’ll have to be quick though, or all hands on board will meet their demise in the foul depths of the cold dark sea.”

Bomb Commander: Price: $1.99
“Easy-to-learn but difficult to master, come join this new stylish take on adventuring into space.
Test your reflexes and brain as you incorporate a wide range of arsenal and take on the most challenging of space foes. Combine bomb attacks into devastating chain reactions that will wipe away your enemies and save the Earth from destruction!”

Board

Eight Queens: Price: $0.99
“The eight queens puzzle is the game of putting chess queens on a chessboard such that none of them is able to capture any other using the standard chess queen’s moves. The queens must be placed in such a way that no two queens would be able to attack each other. Thus, a solution requires that no two queens share the same row, column, or diagonal.”

Card

NOTHING

Casino

Breakfast Slots: Price: $1.99
“It’s breakfast time! Enjoy richly detailed breakfast fun in this video slots app of champions. Spin 3 or more hot coffees to launch bonus rounds that will have you juicing oranges, breaking eggs, and flipping pancakes with your device’s motion sensor! They’re grrreat!”

Virtual Horse Racing 3D: Price: $2.99
“Virtual Horse Racing 3D is the most realistic 3D horse racing game on iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s easy, exciting, fun, and highly addictive. Challenge yourself and see how much you can win!”

Dice

Snakes and Ladders PRO: Price: $0.99
“Snakes and Ladders PRO is a multilevel dice board game which you play against the device or with your friends. The game is called Chutes and Ladders in America and Snakes and Ladders in most other parts of the world. You can shake or touch to roll the dice and then the respective beads move according to the result. And if the bead reaches at the bottom of ladder, then it climbs up the top of that ladder. On the other hand when the bead reaches at the top of a chute, then it goes down to the bottom of that.”

Educational

Study Japanese – Hiragana and Katakana: Price: $0.99
“You will be amazed how quickly you will learn. Each Category has ** 5 Learning Levels. Each Learning Level will “Teach”, “Test” and “Assess your Progress”

Spelling Soup: Price: $2.99
“Move the letters around to correctly spell the word! It’s that easy!”

Math Balance: Price: $0.99
“Drop the numbers on the correct side of the balance. Don’t let the balance tilt too far by keeping the differences small between the numbers on each side of the balance. Submit your score and compete against the rest of the world.”

Family

JustFind: Price: $2.99
“Everyone in your family can find it! You are presented two images almost identical but at most 4 different spots. If you find all the differences in each stage before the countdown timer runs out, the remained time will be added to your score. Be careful! Wrong spot means time penalty! But you will be relieved to know that some unused item is left!”

Music

Steel Guitar: Price: $0.99
“We call it “Steel Guitar” advisedly: it’s comprised of the four instruments that defined a good deal of Rock, Blues and Country. In it, you can select among the Lap Steel, Eight-String Console or either of the traditional Nashville or Texas setups. You can use it as a plain slide guitar (turn on the six-string “Lap” mode, and turn off the accelerometer), or use the full ten-string monster along with configurable “pedals” (actually, the axes of the accelerometer). Slide, pick, dip device to bend. Wire up the volume pedal and swell. Have fun. Slide along with Webb Pierce, Elmo’ James or Allman Bro’s…you pick the style, we provide the sound. To boot, we opine that it’s far easier to play than any other app-guitars out there. You be the judge.”

Name Your Tunes: Price: $1.99
“How well do you know the songs in your own iPhone / iPod Touch? Match your wits against… yourself… in this fun music identification game! In each round of Name Your Tunes, you are played a short clip of a random song from your own music collection, then you are presented with 3 choices. Pick the correct song and rack up a high score. After each round, you can listen to that round’s song in its entirety, or continue on with the next round.”

Puzzle

Unbalanced: Price: $0.99
“Unbalanced is a game of quick wit and strategy. Attempt to keep the blocks balanced for as long as you can in this fun physics based game. If the task becomes too much for you to bare, you can us fire to burn away some of the load – but use it wisely, for you abilities are limited and timing is everything. Save you score and attempt to beat your best times. Unbalanced is fun for the whole family! Pass the game around and challenge your family, friends, and co-workers!”

Best Word Searches – Family word search games for children: Price: $1.99
“This app is a collection of word search games and puzzles! First, we display a word search puzzle on your screen. Then, you try to solve the puzzle by drawing circles, with your fingertips, around the hidden words. It’s just like finger painting! Just touch a color for your paint trail and start drawing, painting, and sketching your way through the puzzle. Cross out words from the list as you find them. Shake your device to clear the screen and start all over. This app even contains sound effects!”

Hikonyan: Price: $0.99
“Hikonyan” is a popular character in JAPAN. This game is a sliding block puzzle game. The rules are very simple: just move blocks up and down, right and left to save a large block. There are 5 stages. Each stages have 3 games, so you can try 15 games. If you have cleared a stage, you’ll get some of wallpapers.”

Racing

TrackStar: Price: $0.99
“Give your fingers a workout as you race your avatar in an athletic competition against four other opponents. Become the master of the sprints, or try your hand at the hurdles. Run your fingers across the screen to jump, sprint, and race your way to victory. Defeat your opponents to win a gold medal or challenge your friends to beat your unbreakable records!”

2009 Road Master: Price: $0.99
“2009 Road Master is a racing game where you take on the role as an amateur driver forced to participate in a illegal street race in order to pay back a huge gambling debt.”

Role Playing

Townrs Defender: Price: $4.99
“Townrs Defender is a fresh take on the Hero Defense genre. Defend the gate against waves of attackers using our unique positional combat system. All abilities are gesture based: a simple flick will cast a fireball!”

Hero Defense: Price: $0.99
“For three thousand years the dwarfs have dwelt in their subterranean passages, assembling their armies and plotting their assault on the peaceful villagers of the surface world. As the last line of defense for your people, you must use strength, speed, and magic to repel the oncoming hordes before they reduce your castle to rubble!”

Simulation

Pinball 360: Price: $0.99
“Take control as you rotate the entire game 360 degrees at any time. Experience three unique playfields as you spin, bounce and ricochet around the table. Keep the ball in play with traditional flippers or by rotating the table left and right.”

Sports

FunkyHOOPS: Price: $1.99
“Are you ready for some HIGH FLYING, SUPER SLAM DUNKING, FAST BREAKING, SHOT BLOCKING, 3 POINT SHOOTING, ALLEY OOPING, 3D BASKETBALL ACTION right on your iPhone or iPod touch? Then look no further than FunkyHOOPS!”

Strategy

Taxi Jam: Price: $0.99
“Your job as the cab driver is to navigate through the city streets to pick up your fare before they get fed up waiting and change their mind. Get to them in time, then drop them at their destination as fast as you can to earn points. As you speed through the streets, watch out for fire trucks, police cars, buses and bikes! Accidents will cost you! If the hazards of the city traffic weren’t enough, in Taxi Jam you’re not just the driver, you’re also the Taxi Controller. You have to decide how many cabs you need on the city streets at one time. Too few and you might miss the fares. Too many, and you’re quite literally going to run into trouble!”

Skabooki: Price: $1.99
“A Witch Doctor built a voodoo doll for his daughter that suffers instead of her, so all the spirits (good and bad) are trying to undo this forbidden magic with puzzles that keep the doll away from her. The goal is to guide Skabooki the Voodoo Doll to the exit of each puzzle by carefully removing blocks. Skabooki cannot be controlled directly; he can only react to forces in his environment. Unlock the story of Skabooki as you play this fun puzzle game. Good luck on getting Skabooki back to the Witch Doctor’s daughter!”

Trivia

NOTHING

Word

Word War: Price: $0.99
“Word War is a new word game that pits you against the computer or a friend. The gameplay involves going back and forth against your opponent trying to out-spell or trap them. The computer has three levels to play against – ranging from an easy version with a limited vocabulary whom you can easily out spell to a version with an almost perfect vocabulary against whom you must trap.”

Word Blitz: Price: $0.99
“Word Blitz is a fast paced game where you race the clock to rearrange the scrambled letters to correctly spell the target word. Each game will challenge you with 20 random words from Word Blitz’s pool of over 500 unique words, and allow you to compete for the highest score on the global leader board hosted by TsunamiDSL. Compete on three levels of difficulty, represented by 3, 4, and 5 letter words. Track your high scores across each game type as well and submit each of those to the global leader boards and compete against the world!”

iPhone/iPod Touch Links

GadgetTell: [Get the government out of my iPhone]

AppleTell: [Free Apps roundup for July 31st, 2009] [Apple releases iPhone update 3.0.1, fixes SMS hack] [Apple says jailbreaking could crash cell towers] [The iPhone is more powerful than the Wii?]