Well, the premise is simple: you are on a shooting range and you need to shoot the targets that appear in groups throughout the level. Anywhere between 1 and 7 targets will appear at any one time and you simply move your phone to line up the target and tap the screen to shoot. Sounds simple, right? Well, in theory, it is pretty simple. But you need to have steady hands to hit the targets that are further away. In order to unlock the subsequent levels you need to hit a set number of targets – extra credits are awarded if you hit more targets. Once you have progressed through the levels and earned enough credits you can then unlock extra guns.

There are 12 guns in total each with 12 challenges so there is quite a lot for your 59p. However, game play is fairly limited as the same levels appear twice for each gun and you are always aiming at the same targets. A different target could spice things up a bit or, even better, the option to add photo’s of your ‘friends’ to shoot at as the targets.

Still, for a first game to use the gyroscope and costing only 59p, it’s not bad at all. The new style of game play is refreshing and should keep you occupied for a while.

It’s currently on sale in the AppStore for 59p ($0.99) until the end of March so go and grab a bargain! If you miss the offer and it goes back to the full price (£2.99 / $4.99) then they also have a free version with a sample level so you can try before you buy. It’s a great little platform game with enough little extras to make it a very unique experience.

The only issue I’ve had so far though is the iPod control / playlist set up doesn’t seem to work and ends up hanging. Other users have reported a ‘black screen of death’ where the app simply won’t load but I’ve not had this yet and have been playing it endlessly for the last few days!

I have been playing this game for about two weeks now an I have to admit it is addictive, and like it’s predecessor I can imagine it’ll be some time before I put it down.

The tasks are quite simple move the blocks into the dark area of the board and make them fit. Some of the puzzles are way too easy and some are much harder, but I was a little disappointed not to have any really fiendish puzzles to get my teeth into. This is offset by an immensely difficult and infuriating Arcade mode but lack of variety here makes for a short-lived experience.

This app is a real finger frenzy with some of the puzzles requiring the use of five fingers on the screen at once which for the older iPod touch is a little too much to handle but on the iPhone the issue is just how dextrous your fingers are. I did really like this app as I like puzzle games and the polish of this app is evident however it lacks depth that some might hope for and can be played to completion in only a few days, but for .59p it is still a bargain and one I wish to hope will have some updated levels soon.

Zombies is a turn-based game where your aim is to, rather unsurprisingly, kill the zombies. This is not, however, the usual gore-laden shooter commonly associated with zombie games but, rather, an amusing little gem that is so addictive in it’s simplicity. How many other zombie-based games have the lead character saying in their best British accent ‘oh dear’ when devoured by the living dead?!

It is, apparently, based on a daleks turn-based game and the aim is to destroy the zombies by making them collide. When they do collide they burst into flames with a groan. To keep things interesting there are ‘banish’ spells dotted about on some levels and also the ‘flee’ button. Banish spells destroy any zombies one ‘square’ away from you so it’s handy to pick them up and save them for some of the later levels. The flee button sends you to a random point on the screen accompanied by a python-esque ‘run away’ which does, sometimes, result in another ‘oh dear’ situation…

As you progress to the third set of levels you find yourself surrounded by a random number of zombies and banish spells. It keeps things interesting to say the least!

Zombies has a catchy theme tune as well as some amusing character voices but does lack some features. The ability to edit or remove players from the roster would be appreciated and I, personally, would like to see a level editor allowing you to create your own levels with, perhaps, the ability to share these with other users.

All in all for a (currently) 59p game it is fun and addictive – the randomly generated levels keep it fresh every time. Zombies is one of those games you can just pick up and play for 5 minutes while standing in the queue at Morrisons!

A good start and I’m looking forward to the updates!

Major improvements:

• The option to change graphical settings for increased performance in game on 1G and 3G devices.
• More responsive camera controls, including the ability to make the camera zoom further in for a closer look at the action.
• The ability to flip the game screen based on the orientation of your device.
• Improved Ninja Rope controls allowing even more death-defying rope stunts.
• The ability to unleash devastating weapons on your enemies from the safety of a parachute.
• Shorter thinking times of AI players.
• Highly improved back-flip and jump controls, including a new finger swipe method for back-flip to make sure you never accidentally jump worms into the water again.
• The facility to customise the game even further by creating your own enemy teams.
• General performance increases across the board.
• Quick shortcut to zoom out/in quickly with a press of the top left corner.

Other fixes:

• 1st gen devices crashed if left on the pause menu for a couple of minutes.
• Removed game saving/loading dialog message box.
• Upon opening the weapons panel and then closing it with the resume game option, the worm would occasionally jump.
• The pause game button could cause the worm to walk left if held down.
• Non-scrolling text in the AI created team menu.
• Added initial boot screen asking user to hard reset their device. This is to help users get the best experience/performance (due to fragmented iPhone memory problems).
• Various speech-bank issues where a foreign language was being incorrectly used.
• During the hot-seat time of a turn, commentary text such as ‘It’s a brand new turn!’ will appear underneath the darkened screen. The commentary text should appear when the turn has begun.
• Instance where a worm causes damage, but at the end of a turn no damage is taken.
• When viewing the How to Play options in game, the fire button and weapon panel buttons need to be hidden.
• Music incorrectly switching off when 20% power message has appeared.
• When the player quits a game, the in-game music carries on into the front-end. This is incorrect – it should be the generic front-end music playing instead.
• When the Holy HG comes to rest the particle effect obscures the weapon. The particle trial should only really be seen when the weapon is in motion.
• Various localisation errors fixed.
• Says heaths instead of health in how to play text.
• When the player selects a weapon, it would be useful for the commentary panel to display the weapon name for a couple of seconds.
• At present, if the player moves the camera and then aims with the reticule, the camera will re-centre on the worm. Fixed.
• Decompress music upon first launch in order to increase performance on older devices.

The first challenge that Team 17 had to overcome with the iPhone/iPod version of Worms was the control method – the devices clearly lack any physical controls. Other games have utilised semi-transparent controls overlaid on the game screen; Worms, however, uses a couple of on-screen buttons, two ‘areas’ (left and right) and the worms themselves. This isn’t instantly obvious and I had to actually read the help guide to discover what to do. Once these have been read though it is actually fairly simple to control.  To move your worm left press the left hand side of the screen, ditto for moving right; to jump tap the worm, to back-flip simply double-tap the worm; pinch/pull to zoom in/out; use 2-finger sliding to pan across the map; tap the crosshairs once to select and then aim by moving it with your finger; tap the ammo box on the bottom left to choose your weapon and then the target on the bottom right is for firing. That’s all there is really!

Now, onto the actual review. The game itself is relatively unchanged – you have a team of worms with which you try to kill off the other team(s) of worms one turn at a time. The choice of weapon is impressive ranging from bazookas, grenades and airstrikes to exploding sheep, banana bombs and kamikaze worms; during play you need to know what each weapon icon represents as there is no text to explain. You can, however, go to the help screen and get information on each of the weapons but this can be quite time consuming – a simple text description once your weapon is picked could clear up a lot of confusion. Also, on the subject of weapon selection, once a weapon is selected, the only thing you have to confirm your choice is the item the worm is holding – now neither the worms or the iPhone screen are particularly large and, at most, you have about 6 pixels worth of graphic to see what your worm is armed with! If you go back to the ammo selection then the current selection is not highlighted – a simple highlight would, again, clear this up.

Controlling the worms can, at times, be slightly tricky and/or frustrating; there is a certain art to the 2-finger scroll but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. Occasionally the double-taps (back-flip) aren’t registered and instead your worm will do a forward jump – this is usually OK though unless you are stood on a cliff edge and the resulting action propels your worm to his demise…

Despite the UI ‘issues’ the game is fun to play with cute (if you can call a worm with a bazooka cute) graphics and brilliant little sound clips – my all time favourite of ‘leave me alone’ has made it in there too! The background music is just that – music in the background that adds to the atmosphere of the game but certainly doesn’t get in the way of the action. The animation is very well executed especially when you consider the size of the worms and the animated text is a nice touch to the overall look and feel of the game. You can customise your own teams (the team’s name and 4 worms’ names, voices (English, French etc as well as Scouser, Angry Scot, Stiff Upper Lip and more!) and use these teams in the challenges or in the multiplayer mode. Multiplayer mode, at the moment, is limited to passing the device to the next person for their turn although Team 17 are working on adding ’3.0 features’ in particular multiplayer over bluetooth. They are also looking into the touch sensitivity and performance issues on some older devices.

There are a six different ‘themes’ for the levels ranging from cold, snowy landscapes to the red hot depths of hell. The levels themselves are also made up of random landscapes which adds even more variety. In the single player practise mode and in multiplayer mode you get to customise your own levels – choosing both the background and the type of landscape.

If you ever enjoyed worms you will enjoy the iPhone version. If you have never played it before then at £2.99 ($4.99 USD) it is a veritable bargain that is bound to please. While the UI issues may be annoying at times it is worth noting that Team 17 are not one-hit wonders; they have been around for a long time in the gaming industry and so updates will certainly be on their way! Members of Team 17 have already stated in their Facebook group that improvements to zoom are already in the next update as well as hints at some extra options to boost game speed on the older devices (such as switching off animated backgrounds).

UPDATE: v1.01 has been released to the AppStore – see here for full information.

The Sims 3 is proving more playable than expected, Frenzic is maddeningly addictive and Let’s Golf is a very playable golf game.

On the App/Util side we have Sky’s Sky+ TV Guide/Remote Record applet and Weightbot.

For fans of Alan Partridge the fantastically simple but equally hilarious Pocket Alan raises a smile and Paper Toss is a great little free game.

And last but not least on the GPS front we’re looking at MotionX GPS, a must have GPS app, V-Cockpit GPS, novel albeit of little practical use and iHUD Display, a rather nice Head Up Display speedo, Top Gun style!

Finally on the Twitter front there is a whole raft of apps including Twitterific, Tweetie, Twitterfon and my personal favourite, Twittelator Pro.

So that’s our week fully booked, crumbs it’s 3G S launch day Friday, better get writing!