Chris Barylick

The 3.0 version of Tiki Golf 3D from Arb Studios is just as fun and imaginative as the mini golf game's original incarnation. Sadly, though, the new edition requires ample bug fixes before it's up to par.

Like the original version, Tiki Golf 3D 3.0 has you take on the role of Bobby Tiki, a golfer who must win back the artifacts taken by the gods Lono and Kahuna. Throughout the course of the game, you'll play in three game modes (Tiki Putt, Time Trials and Pineapple Adventure). Once again, good graphics, great sound, prizes, ramps, power-ups, and obstacles help you along the way and unlockable levels make a tried-and-true premise unique and fun. The 3.0 version promises online leader boards, an improved interface, and performance boots, among other enhancements.

Amidst the bovine-like developer stampede to get bells-and-whistles-laden, marquee products out for the iPhone and iPod touch handsets and up on the ever-profitable App Store, sometimes simple apps work the best.

This is the case with MegaNudge Entertainment's Arcade SpinBall, a game that can really only be described as a first-person version of Pong. Set in a hallway with your paddle on one end and the computer's paddle at the other, you must return your opponent's serve, bouncing the ball off the walls to make the return that much harder and score against your opponent.

However civil you are to your neighbors, co-workers, friends, and loved ones, there's probably a part of you that wants to lead a mighty war machine into battle, level up, collect upgrades and emerge triumphant despite impossible odds. That doesn't necessarily mean you're not a nice person, someone who regularly brings good homemade chili to meetings and parties.

To indulge your would-be warrior, try Tank-O-Box, a real-time military strategy game for the iPhone and iPod touch developed by Exclusive Games and offered via Alaware Entertainment. You control a tank in battles that take place over the course of 55 levels and 30 types of terrain on an imaginary writing desk. Within each level, you must defeat opposing tanks, guard your headquarters, take out the enemy's radar or pillboxes-or all of the above.

The App Store is hardly lacking for games that let you scratch that itchy trigger finger--particularly if your notion of an ideal shooter involves finding big game in the sights of your virtual weapon. If hunting games strike your fancy, Glu adds another dimension to the genre with Deer Hunter 3D.

The $3 hunting simulator has you tracking game in three locations--the American Midwest, Northern Europe and Western Russia--with a variety of unlockable weapons. (A bolt-action rifle, shotgun, single- shot rifle, compound bow, black powder rifle, and an AK-47 can all be yours.) You can also unlock deer calls, musks, and other items to help you sneak up on your prey. (In Deer Hunter 3D Free, you're limited to a woodland setting and a bonus round.)

BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment's two-day celebration for enthusiasts of its popular computer games, converged this past weekend in Anaheim, Calif. Blizzard used the event to reveal its upcoming "Cataclysm" expansion pack for World of Warcraft, and also provided details of other games in development.

Cataclysm builds on a massively multiplayer game that's been in continuous play since 2004, and has been added onto twice already with expansion packs. While previous expansion packs have emphasized improvements that mainly benefit high-level players, Blizzard is going back to basics with Cataclysm by offering new content to attract both new and existing players.

There's always room for a good trading/"tycoon"-style game on any platform. And the mobile version of NinjaBee's $3 Kaloki Adventure is a good trading/"tycoon"-style game.

In this space-themed game, you take control of 14 individual space stations. In true "tycoon" style, you're supposed to outfit each station with the aim of making them profitable and meeting other goals within a set period of time.

It's hard to determine what the future will bring, but if standard video game lore is by any means accurate, there will be an apocalypse, giant corporations will rise to power, and a small rebellion will fight these corporate overlords via mechanized robotic weaponry.

Or at least that's how the future will be according to Iron Sight, a robotic warfare simulation game in the tradition of Scorched Earth. In this $4 game from Polarbit, you take control of either the Corporation or Rebellion forces with the goal of entering a level and, in a turn-based fashion, destroying the other team's units within a given period of time via standard missiles, cluster bombs, homing missiles, tactical teleporting, and other weaponry.

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D was among the first games to hit the App Store when Apple's online emporium opened its doors a year ago. Since then, updates from Vivendi Games Mobile have been few and far between. So as other racing games have revved their way onto iPhones and iPod touches across the globe, how well does this year-old racing kart game set in the Crash Bandicoot universe hold up?

Pretty well, actually. Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D is an imaginative racing game that puts you in the role of Crash and his friends as they compete against Oxide and his allies in tournaments, story mode and time trials. These take place across 20 unique tracks, each featuring power-ups, power-downs, obstacles and weapons that can be picked up and used to your advantage.

I wasn't initially sure what to make of NimbleBit'sSky Burger for the iPhone and iPod touch. After all, here's a game where you're assembling a tower from parts that fall from the sky--only, in this case, the parts involve food.

Strangely enough, it works. The $2 Sky Burger challenges you to build either the tallest hamburger possible or a specific hamburger from a slew of randomly falling ingredients. As the hamburger gets taller, the game's physics kick in. The hamburger stack, which shifts from side to side to both dodge and gather ingredients, gains its own sense of weight and inertia, thus becoming more and more unwieldy. Get the right toppings on the burger and you'll walk away with a handsome tip and "flair" (those colorful buttons memorably lampooned in Office Space). Add the wrong ingredients, and you'll watch your tip percentage rapidly decline.

There may be thousands of games available at the App Store, but there's always room for pirates. WarShip from Goorusoft answers the call with a pirate combat simulator that's on sale for $1 as of this writing.

Like many real-time combat games, WarShip has you start small and work your way up the ladder. Choose from one of seven seas to fight in, then maneuver and engage larger ships while collecting gold from defeated opponents before pirate raiders do. As the levels go by and you stash away more gold, you can upgrade your ship with additional cannons, better sails and heavier armor; you can also unlock more powerful ships, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. (A free lite version of WarShip lets you sample the game with fewer stages and less powerful ships.)

Sometimes it's the unexpected games that set the standard. With almost no hype or licensing excitement, Com2us' Baseball Slugger: Home Run Race 3D has proven this point for the iPhone and iPod touch. A combination between a home-run derby simulator and a role-playing game, Baseball Slugger has you create a baseball player and compete against others, all the while unlocking new items, equipment, and features via classic, arcade, training, and multiplayer game modes.

Baseball Slugger's graphics don't push the envelope, but they serve their purpose nicely. A good blend of 2-D and 3-D as well as occasional flare effects draw you into the game while an amazing sound system delivers the roar of the crowd, the crack of the bat and the all the nuances of the ballpark experience. This, combined with well-timed vibrations of the handset when you get a powerful hit behind the ball, provide terrific immersive factors that keep you interested in the game.

Whether it's for desktops, handheld devices, or mobile phones, there will always be golf games. And Arb Studios has thrown its hat into the App Store's growing ring of golf games with Tiki Golf 3D. The twist here is that you're stepping into the golf shoes of Tiki Bobby, taking on the Tiki gods Lono and Kahuna, who have absconded with your prize artifacts.

(Image Caption: On Target: The holes on Tiki Golf 3D feature plenty of obstacles--floating islands, ramps, and bulleyes like this one that knock strokes off your score when you hit them.)