I've been playing both quite a bit and can see the draw for either game. Here's the full list.

Which do you think should be the top game?

Check out all of our iPhone game reviews.

Position	Title	Price	Weeks	Last Week
1	Call of Duty: World at War Zombies (Activision)	$9.99	6	3
2	N.O.V.A. - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance (Gameloft)	$6.99	2	1
3	Need for Speed: SHIFT (EA)	$6.99	1	-
4	The Sims 3 (EA)	$6.99	16	8
5	Tetris (EA)	$2.99	16	10
6	Rock Band (Electronic Arts)	$4.99	1	-
7	Bejeweled 2 (PopCap Games)	$2.99	17	6
8	Madden NFL 10 (Electronic Arts)	$5.99	1	-
9	James Cameron's Avatar (Gameloft)	$9.99	2	4
10	Touchgrind (Illusion Labs)	$4.99	1	-

After years of cop chases, arcadey controls, and Maggie Q, the NFS franchise took a more Forza-like path for its latest console iteration. The much needed overhaul was a hit with critics, and now SHIFT effectively duplicates that same success on Apple's gaming gadget.

Loved
Role-playing Racer:Like its console counterparts, SHIFT's iPhone debut forgoes the free-wheeling approach that established the franchise, in favor of a racer that plays much more like an RPG. Through a robust career mode, heavy-foot gamers unlock points and stars for performing a variety of tasks. These fall into "precision" and "aggression" categories, and level you up without necessarily requiring you to win races. As you gain levels, you'll unlock new events, earn cash to upgrade and buy vehicles, and pad out your profile with Achievement-like badges. The super addictive format sets you on a path that quickly becomes as engaging as any just-one-more-level RPG experience.

Power Steering: As a gamer yet to embrace accelerometer controls as a superior alternative to traditional navigation, I was nervous about SHIFT stubbornly forcing them on players. Thankfully, my concerns were washed away like roadkill in a rain storm, as SHIFT controls like a dream. Simply tilt the device left and right to steer, give it an aggressive twitch to drift, and touch anywhere on the screen to brake. Additionally, a variety of assists can be turned on to ensure even sim-haters and rookie racers reach the finish line.

Visual HorsepowerSHIFT steals the cup from Asphalt 5 as the prettiest racer on the platform. From the detail-drenched real-world rides to the beautifully rendered globe-spanning locales, SHIFT sports a late PS2 era-like presentation. Even cooler are immersion-amping effects that'll spike your adrenaline and have you checking if your seat belt's buckled; nitro-fueled flames, smoke-spitting tires, and scenery that whips by at 150+ MPHs all do an amazing job of selling a real sense of speed and control. I've played plenty of console racers that don't do this good a job of immersing you in the pedal-to-the-metal moment.

Given that SHIFT's multi-player options look pretty limited next to the brimming career mode, I was tempted to add a "Hated" bullet highlighting this shortcoming. However, the lengthy solo experience is so solid and so polished, it's easy to overlook-and even appreciate-the developers obvious dedication to the single-player experience.

Need For Speed: SHIFT was developed by IronMonkey Studios and published by EA for iPhone on December 18th. Retails for $9.99. A code to download the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Completed the game's career mode and participated in multi-player modes.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

No, he didn't kill a cat to test this out so far as I know. But apparently SouthPeak Interactive and developer FORMation wanted to make an iPhone game in his honor; and instead of making it about gassing cats to death, it's about rats and mazes. Isn't science awesome?

In Schrödinger's Rat, players control a chalk ball with the accelerometer and tilt it through the many twists of 117 mazes. Each maze is a test of an element on the periodic table. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with quantum physics or Schrödinger, but it is something else to do on your iPhone and iPod Touch for only $0.99.

Check it out and tell me if the rat dies.

Image Cred

The Unreal Engine 3 will only run on third-generation iPod Touches and the iPhone 3GS, and the demo being shown is not a fully-operable game, just a stripped-down version of Unreal Tournament.

Some elaboration from AnandTech from their meeting with Epic Games V.P. Mark Rein:

Epic isn't announcing any sort of iPhone engine licenses nor are they entering the iPhone game market. Porting UE3 to the iPhone is simply one of many projects being worked on inside a newer, more svelte and innovative Epic Games (wait till you see what's next...)... Mark said they planned to make this available to licensees at some point in the near future.

And here's a thought experiment: How about a recent Epic hit ported to the iPhone?

...eventually it wouldn't be too far fetched to see a full port of Gears of War to something as small as an iPhone. NAND Flash capacities to support multiple 9GB games will be there in another few years, as will GPU horsepower.

According to the site, Rein said that Unreal Engine 3 support will be announced for "another mobile platform" at next month's CES, the biggest tech show of the year.

Epic Demonstrates Unreal Engine 3 for the iPod Touch/iPhone 3GS [AnandTech]

Gameloft's first-person shooter storms onto the charts, , with Battleship adding to the displacingment. Cartoon Wars-Gunner jumps into the fray as well, with last week's new entry Dragon's Lair nowhere to be seen.

Which do you think should be the top game?

Check out all of our iPhone game reviews.

Position	Title	Price	Weeks	Last Week
1<img src="" width="160" height="110" />	N.O.V.A. - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance (Gameloft)	$6.99	1	-
2	Battleship (Electronic Arts)	$2.99	1	-
3	Call of Duty: World at War Zombies (Activision)	$9.99	5	2
4	James Cameron's Avatar (Gameloft)	$9.99	1	-
5	Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey (Ludia)	$2.99	1	2
6	Bejeweled 2 (PopCap Games)	$2.99	16	7
7	Cartoon Wars-Gunner (Blue GNC)	$0.99	1	-
8	The Sims 3 (EA)	$6.99	15	8
9	Labyrinth 2 (Illusion Labs)	$4.99	2	4
10	Tetris (EA)	$4.99	15	7

With Dragon's Lair's port to the iPhone and iPod Touch, EA Mobile and Digital Leisure are banking that the game's nostalgia and its basic simplicity have found the perfect medium - an impulse buy on a mobile platform. But does Dragon's Lair still feel the same on the small screen?

Loved
Bona Fide Dragon's Lair: This is a scene for scene port of the 1983 classic, which started the short-lived but much beloved craze of laserdisc games. You can dial up your nostalgia however you want it. Arcade mode will present you the game and will randomize its scenes the same way you played them in the cabinet 25 years ago. "Home mode" includes additional scenes that were cut from the arcade version, allows you to immediately replay levels you fail, and will be most familiar to those who played ports of this on the PC or Mac in the past. You can give yourself three, five or unlimited lives in both modes, the latter being most useful if you're trying to finally make it all the way through. Just know that you will not record a high score with unlimited lives unless you actually do finish the game. Finally, the correct-move beep can be enabled, both as a gameplay assist, and also to complete the full arcade experience.

Hated
The Move Guide: You have a movement assist feature in this game that will light up the correct direction (or sword button) to press to advance the scene, if you just want to see the game all the way through. On some levels, the sequence of moves you must make is faster than what the guide can display. The level with the black knight on the electrified floor is a perfect example, and very frustrating to die repeatedly when you think you're doing what you're told. But when the guide does work, you're just watching the controls, and not the scenes as they play out, which are the point of the game in the first place. You can't enable or disable the guide mid-game, in case you run into a tough spot and need help for just one section. Even playing without the guide, Dragon's Lair was and always will be a very difficult game of pinpoint reactions with a small window of opportunity to execute them. Unlike its cousin Space Ace, which was a breeze to play on the iPhone, Dragon's Lair's trial-and-error process includes finding not only the correct move, but the correct millisecond to make it - even when you think you know when to do it. For example, I remembered that making it past the swinging "socker-boppers" was pegged to pressing forward when they both lined up - Dirk's grunting was a second cue. But the screen is small and the speaker can be blocked by how you hold the device, making picking up such things very difficult. The game still works, but you're going to die a ton of times before you get the hang of how to move through a level, even if you know the correct moves or have them presented to you by the guide.

The Pause that Doesn't Refresh: You'd better really want to finish Dragon's Lair because you will be playing it all the way through in one shot if you're trying to beat it. Which, once you get the hang of this game, won't take long. But getting the hang of it will. If you pause anywhere in the middle of a level, you return to the beginning of that level. OK, fine, I can plan my bathroom breaks accordingly. What I forgot to do was put the phone in airplane mode, because any incoming call ends the game where you are and reboots it. Incoming text? You're back to the title screen. Whether because no effort was made, or it was a limitation with no workaround, players have no way to preserve their state in this game.

If it's your first encounter with Dragon's Lair, this version is not ideal. Find a playable DVD or PC port instead. If it were any other game, honestly, I would have given up. But I just had to see Dirk get all bug-eyed and shriek "Wow!" the first time he spies Daphne, who really knows how to sex up the protips. ("To slay the Dragon, use the magic sword...!" she purrs.)

Then again, I don't know a soul who ever beat Dragon's Lair in the arcade, and my friends and I fired stacks of quarters down it, often without ever successfully passing a level. So I have been conditioned to the abuse and have paid lots more than $4.99 for it. If Dragon's Lair has a problem, aside from the pause/interruption issue, it's one very common to iPhone/iPod Touch games, and I've complained about it relentlessly. You must obscure what you're looking at to control the action. And it's on a small enough screen to begin with. So it's telling that I got through a lot of these levels with no recollection of what it looked like doing so, and that's half the fun - and point - of the vintage laserdisc games.

Dragon's Lair was developed by Digital Leisure and published by Electronic Arts for the iPhone and Ipod Touch on Dec. 7. Retails for $4.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types; completed Home mode. Died, like, a billion times, though.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Walt Disney has released The Muppets Animal Drummer on the iTunes App Store, allowing players to rock out with the world's greatest practitioner of the drumming art. You can play through classic mode, or import your own tunes in free play mode, and there's even a record function that saves your performance so Animal can reproduce it in his signature style.

The Muppets Animal Drummer is now available for purchase for a mere $1.99. I'm going to go ahead and call it: this is the iPhone's killer app.

But at least Namco Bandai hasn't forgotten about the arcade-style racing game, with plans to release Ridge Racer: Accelerated some time this month. Further details are still forthcoming, but Famitsu has in-game screens and swears it'll be out before the end of the year for an unspecified price.

世界初公開！ iPhone『RIDGE RACER ACCELERATED』最新映像&画面写真大量入手 [Famitsu via NeoGAF]

A Monkey Ball vs. Waldo... who wins? One of them tops the Zombies. And Dragon's Lair, that oldie but goodie starts strong on a new platform.

Which do you think should be the top game?

Check out all of our iPhone game reviews.

Position	Title	Price	Weeks	Last Week
1	Where's Waldo? The Fantastic Journey (Ludia)	$2.99	1	-
2	Call of Duty: World at War Zombies (Activision)	$9.99	4	1
3	Dragon's Lair (Electronic Arts)	$4.99	1	-
4	Labyrinth 2 (Illusion Labs)	$4.99	1	-
5	Super Monkey Ball 2(Sega)	$4.99	1	-
6	Bejeweled 2 (PopCap Games)	$2.99	16	2
7	Tetris (EA)	$4.99	14	4
8	The Sims 3 (EA)	$6.99	14	5
9	Monopoly (EA)	$4.99	4	3
10	Need for Speed: Undercover (EA)	$4.99	3	9

After giving you Lucille Bliss, also the voice of Smurfette, as one of the voices for Princess Daphne in the game, we asked for the second. The correct answer was Vera Pacheco, also known as Vera Lanpher, Vera Lanpher-Pacheco, or Vera Day. We accepted any of those four as correct responses.

Pacheco was actually the head of assistant animators for the project, which until it brought in Bliss, used only one other professional voice: the narrator of the title sequence. Sound engineer Dan Molina supplied the voice of Dirk the Daring.

Thanks to EA Mobile for supplying the prize, and thanks to all who entered!

Here's the lowdown on the swag up for grabs: It's a Blu-Ray version of the game, which you'll remember was a series of animated sequences that you successfully advanced by joystick or button. So that means not only is this playable on a PS3, it's playable on anything with Blu-Ray capability. It also features full 1080p bonus material. You can see all the info here.

The pot sweetener: the case is signed by Dragon's Lair creators: Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy and Rick Dyer. Bluth was the lead animator, with artists Goldman and Pomeroy helping to create the game's signature visuals. Dyer was the president of Advanced Microcomputer Systems, and is credited with the concept that became the game, an eye-popping hit in the arcade days of 1983.

Now. Here's how we're gonna give this away. We'll ask a trivia question, and you must email its correct answer to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom within the next 24 hours. DO NOT POST THE ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS. We will choose a winner at random from all the correct guesses.

Here's how to play.

1) Send your answer to kotakucontestATgmailDOTcom
2) The subject header of your message must include the words Dragon's Lair Contest. You should probably cut and paste those words to the subject header now.
3) Your answer must be received by 4 p.m. US Mountain time tomorrow, Sunday Dec. 12. 2009.
4) Your answer must be spelled correctly to be eligible.
5) Do not post the answer in the comments. Comment submissions are not eligible.

We'll pick a winner from the correct answers and, if it's you, we'll have to ask for your full name, address and phone number to have it shipped.

Alright here's the question:

Princess Daphne was in fact voiced by two women in the original Dragon's Lair. Lucille Bliss, the voice of Smurfette, was one. Who was the other?

Remember, correct answer, correct spelling, correct subject header. Thanks!

World at War's zombies managed to hang on to the top spot while a skate title hit the number ten.

Which do you think should be the top game?

Check out all of our iPhone game reviews.

Position	Title	Price	Weeks	Last Week
1	Call of Duty: World at War Zombies (Activision)	$9.99	3	1
2	Bejeweled 2 (PopCap Games)	$2.99	15	4
3	Monopoly (EA)	$4.99	3	2
4	Tetris (EA)	$4.99	13	3
5	The Sims 3 (EA)	$6.99	13	6
6	Scrabble (EA)	$4.99	16	5
7	Implode! (IUGO Mobile Entertainment)	$1.99	2	9
8	Madden NFL 10 (EA)	$6.99	2	8
9	Need for Speed: Undercover (EA)	$2.99	2	7
10	Skater Nation (Gameloft)	$6.99	1	-

The beautifully animated game of memorization, reflex and Princess Daphne rescue is available for a paltry sum, just $4.99 USD. That's a guarantee that I'll, once again, invest in another copy of Dragon's Lair, realize how terrible I am at such things and put it aside.

But the early reviews on iTunes appear to be mostly positive. Maybe another crack at Dragon's Lair is worth the download?

Beaterator for the iPhone might not be as full-featured as the PlayStation Portable version, but then at $4.99 compared to $39.99, we wouldn't expect it to be. Remix premade tunes or create your own in loop mode using a simple touch screen interface that might actually have a leg-up on its PSP predecessor. It won't make you the next Mozart, of course, but it certainly has the potential to make visits to the bathroom much more musical than they already are.

That didn't sound right.

Beaterator for the iPhone is available now on the Apple iTunes App Store.

Like this, apparently. I have no idea what the hell is going on in this screenshot, but I'm interested in finding out. House M.D. seems to be a puzzle game of sorts, translating the rather dry diagnosis elements of the show into more readily-digestible puzzle bits. You are still using logic and reasoning in a way...you're just doing it in a more colorful fashion.

The game allows you to listen to your own music while you play, and there's a Facebook tie-in that lets you diagnose and save your friends from hideous rare diseases that are almost guaranteed to not be lupus. It's NEVER lupus.

I think I would have preferred a fighting game, but this will do in a pinch. House M.D. is now available on the App Store for $2.99.

Note: I called it an NBC show because it is produced in association with Universal Media Studios, the production arm of NBC Universal Television Group. This confused some of you, so I just put FOX up there.

The game will feature an arcade mode, faithful to the content of the original cabinet game, and a home mode that includes extra scenes. Space Ace, the other Don Bluth animated game on the iPhone/iPod Touch, was $4.99. No word on price point here, and delivery is listed as just "December 2009."

Man, I remember this thing cost 50 CENTS. You whippersnappers probably have no idea what balls it took for an arcade game to charge that in 1983. I never beat it in the arcades but I did 15 years later on a port to the Mac - after dying about 80 times. On the first board.

Lead on, adventurer ... your quest awaits!

Canabalt is a game of escape, a simple, one-action platformer that—from a gameplay perspective—is little more than careful jumping, an accelerated sprint across rooftops, through windows and over tower cranes. As the highwater pants-wearing star of Canabalt, a black and white escapee with impressive stamina, players must avoid obstacles that can slow their sprint and bombs that will turn them into a fine mist as they run away from... something. Players must also avoid running face first into a wall and plummeting to their death.

There's a free Flash version of Canabalt and an iPhone port available through the iTunes App Store. Canabalt is worth playing, but is it also worth buying? (Yes, but humor me and read the review anyway, OK?)

Loved
The Best Graphics Six Colors Can Buy: Canabalt's minimal graphics don't skimp on atmosphere. From the smoothly animated runner, to the hulking monstrosities in the distant background, to the little touches, like the shatter of windows and rooftops lined with doves, the game's simple presentation does well in telling a more interesting story. There's no narrative to speak of, but Canabalt's high-altitude world gives an impression of a fascinating sci-fi disaster happening around you.

The Maximum Awesome Effect: The iPhone version of the game prefaces the experience with "For maximum awesome, headphones recommended." That's good advice, because Canabalt's attention to detail in the sound department deserves proper attention. When the game's catchy, high energy electronic soundtrack takes a pause and turns to a moody whine, the player can hear the plink of footsteps on metal, the quiet grunts of the protagonist's exertion as he jumps from building to building. The sudden sounds of bombs dropping and alien ships zooming by make the rooftop-to-rooftop action that much more tension filled. Canabalt simply sounds spectacular.

Gaming By The Minute: The Flash game is a fine distraction from doing real work. The nearly identical iPhone app is just as addictive of a diversion, offering two-minutes and under opportunities to play a video game, a brief opportunity to improve one's Canabalt run—then brag about their score on Twitter—when the moment strikes.

Canabalt's a straightforward, simple action game with an impressive presentation that belies its hasty creation. It's incredibly short and offers no ultimate goal other than extending the length of your daring escape. And despite its brevity and its sometimes frustrating randomness, it's the iPhone game I've dedicated the most time to in 2009 due to its incredibly addictive appeal and sharp visual design. There's always another escape attempt, just a tap (or click) away.

Canabalt was developed and published by Semi Secret Software iPhone on October 2. Retails for $2.99 USD for iPhone and can be played in a web browser for free. Attempted too many daring escapes to recall, but maxed out at 3600 meters. (Wait, just played again and reached 4225 meters.)

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

NOTE: Throughout the month of December, Kotaku will review some of the games that we missed earlier in the year. We're catching up.

Right before Apple launched games for the Apple iPhone on the App Store, Square Enix released the original Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes, a strategy RPG for the original click-wheel iPod. The game used your own music to generate troops in battle, with power, class, and rarity determined by the song used in creation. You could even power up your characters when not playing, just by listening to the music that summoned them.

It was a brilliant concept, but why wasn't it on the iPhone instead? Well now it is, and I can stop asking that question.

Song Summoner follows the story of Ziggy, a young conductor with the power to give music physical form. His brother has been kidnapped, and he must rally the troops to fight by your side.

The iPhone version of Song Summoner features more than 50 unlockable troops to aid you through a story twice the size of the original game, for more than 30 hours of gameplay. 30 hours of gameplay is a hell of a deal for the $9.99 asking price, and there's also a free lite version available if you want to try before you buy.

I've spent the past hour going through the music on my iPhone, trying to create the perfect army. Apparently Weird Al isn't good battle music. Go figure.

The People's Republic of Leasath has launched a sneak attack on the Federal Republic of Aurelia, and it's up to the Falco squadron to rock Amadeus and barrel roll all over their sorry asses. That's the basic plot for Ace Combat Xi for the iPhone and iPod Touch, now available for $4.99 from Namco Networks. The game features an original story, HD quality graphics, full 360-degree flight combat, and environments ripped from satellite imagery to give the whole package a hunt of realism.

Answering the question Crecente poised in his hands-on, there sadly doesn't seem to be any multiplayer, but the price is right, and the promise of downloadable planes in the future leaves me hopeful that something pink and Id@lmaster-y might be in my iPhone's future.

First, they got rid of the 2D sprite monkeys and replaced them with 3D monkeys and 3D boards. This of course changes the physics, which in turn requires a revamping of the accelerometer controls. Which means that very likely most of the bad stuff that made me delete the game from a friend's iPhone less than an hour after he downloaded it is already gone.

Here's how the rest of the game rolls:

What Is It?
Super Monkey Ball 2 for the iPhone is a racing-ish game where you tilt your iPhone to steer a monkey contained in a ball through a 3D board dotted with traps, collectible bananas and an endpoint. Fans of the franchise from its GameCube and Wii versions will recognize Ai Ai and friends in the main cast no matter how small they look on the iPhone.

What We Saw
I played three boards in both multiplayer and singleplayer on an iPod Touch. Only the first stage, Jungle Jungle, was unlocked on my machine — but during multiplayer, a PR rep had Pirates Ocean unlocked and was able to include a board from that stage in our competition. There are 115 boards in all.

How Far Along Is It?
It hits the App Store today.

What Needs Improvement?
Monkey Bowling Isn't Online? Monkey Bowling is one of three mini games that give you an alternative to the basic board racing. (Monkey Golf and Monkey Target should be out at some point in the future as a free update.) The point of the game is to flick your finger across the screen quickly or slowly to send your monkey ball down an alley to knock over pins. While it's plenty fun and you can play it with other people via pass-along play, it doesn't look like you can play it using the online multiplayer that the racing mode uses. This bums me out because I'm kind of weird about other people touching my touch screen. It feels... dirty.

What Should Stay The Same?
Fixed It! The basic 3D racing gameplay feels so much better than the previous Monkey Ball. You won't have to fling your iPhone around wildly to make the monkey go and the accelerometer is very responsive to even the slightest shifts. It's such a pleasurable experience, you won't mind replaying boards to complete banana collection challenges.

Democratic Multiplayer: When playing with people who've unlocked more boards than you, you get the rare ability to sample stages that are out of your league. However, players can't just inflict super-hard boards on noobs because the stage-choosing system is democratic. Once a multiplayer match starts, each player gets to pick three or four boards from their own selection and the game determines which ones to use based on votes.

Final Thoughts
It's a perfect time-waster and pretty enough to where you won't feel embarrassed about having it on your iPhone. I suggest using Monkey Bowling as a way to convince skeptics to buy it so you have multiplayer partners. If you can stand people touching your touch screen, that is.