Run Roo Run ($0.99 iPhone, $1.99 iPad) is a simple to learn, yet hard to master side-scrolling game that rewards split-second accuracy. If you were one of those gamers that toiled over Mario to get the timing of jumping from pipe to pipe just right, then this is the game for you. Run Roo Run forgoes complex touch-based controls, yet still delivers that satisfying rush when you make the right moves.

Gameplay is very basic. The main character, Roo, begins running at an even pace across the screen. As Roo approaches an obstacle, you jump by tapping the screen. Jump too soon, and you land on the obstacle. Jump too late, and you run into the obstacle. Each level is timed: How long it takes to beat a level determines your reward, since the timer keeps going every time you run into an obstacle. Between jumping, double jumping, pausing and restarting, you end up driving yourself nuts trying to make it through a given level in record time. The game ends up being about mastering split-second timing and pattern recall.

Each level occupies just a single screen, which combined, add up to Roo’s journey across Australia. With over four hundred individual screen challenges to overcome, the game seems almost endless. Roo learns new skills along the way to conquer new types of obstacles in order to keep things fresh. The game also keeps its edge by resetting quickly after each failed attempt; Roo is back up and ready to try again almost instantly, with no tedious intermediary screens getting in the way.

You can buy power-ups to slow time down or skip a level entirely via in-app purchase, but it definitely takes some satisfaction out of the game. However, with developer 5th Cell (which also created the celebrated Scribblenauts) committed to adding 10 new levels per week, you may need to take advantage of the occasional cheat just to keep up.

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Trenches II ($1.99 iPhone, $2.99 iPad) is the latest in a lineup of World War I-themed games from Thunder Game Works. Falling somewhere between Plants vs. Zombies  and Flight Control, Trenches II offers slightly more advanced, compelling gameplay, so much so that it approaches the realm of real-time strategy gaming.

The game’s training mode leaves a lot to be desired, with constant, annoying pop-ups, but you can get the hang of things without the tutorial. The basics are as follows: As time passes, you earn money to buy more troops. Troops advance from left to right with the swipe of a finger or two.  You do need to be careful though, as your troops will need to be directed to bunkers and other objects on the battlefield to take cover.

You can lead British, French or German troops into battle. Game strategy comes in the form of which type of troops you buy when. There are sharpshooters, engineers, medics, spies, and flamethrower units to name a few. Along the way, you earn Perk points, which can be used to unlock new troop types and upgrade existing ones. For the impatient, there are in-app purchases to accelerate the earning of Perks.

The more rewarding part of the game, and what makes it a great game for a weekend, is definitely the Skirmish play mode.  In it, you need to scope out a battlefield with airships, and then decide how to deploy your troops. The challenge comes from knowing when to invest in an engineer, and when to invest in a rifleman. The resemblance to Flight Control comes in directing different groups of troops to different points on the battlefield.  This adds a lot to the overall feeling you get of being a real-time field commander.

The iPhone can seem a little tight in terms of available screen real estate with Trenches II, so if you have an iPad, that’s the way to play.

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My Xbox LIVE doesn’t have the console-controlling functions of the Xbox Companion app, but it does offer gamers access to their Xbox LIVE account info, including game achievements, your 3-D avatar and friends management and messaging. In fact, if you don’t have a keyboard accessory for your Xbox controller, it makes chatting with friends, managing your friends list and setting Beacons, which alert you to when your friends want to do the same thing as you, much easier.

It’s actually a very handy little app, and it does a good imitation of Windows Phone 7 for people who haven’t experienced that platform’s interface yet. Sounds are taken straight from the Xbox itself, and despite a little lag when switching between some screens as the info is retrieved from Microsoft’s servers, it’s a pretty fun way to navigate content that’s kind of a chore to view on your console.

The app also includes a “Spotlight” section that presents you with video trailers and featurettes normally available through the console. It’s free, so if you’re an Xbox LIVE user, there’s no reason not to check it out.

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There’s no real franchise character with the kind of repeated success of someone like Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario on the iOS platform, but one contender wants to change that. Enter the adventures of Ratty, a collection of fast-paced, side-scrolling games by Donut Games.

In Ratty’s latest, Rat on a Snowboard, you encounter various ramps, icicles, flags, cliffs, trees and exploding meatballs that you need to carve and bonk your way through. There are three different game modes to choose from: Two endless modes, one in which you just remain on your board as long as possible, and another in which you need to sustain a life meter, too; and a challenge mode where you need to accomplish specific objective. In all three modes you rack up points for the various tricks and jumps you perform.

There are three other older titles in the Ratty lineup, Rat on the Run, Rat on a Scooter XL, and Rat on a Skateboard.  All four titles are the same price at $0.99, and all four are universal games that look great on both the iPhone and the iPad.  There’s something special about the latest game, however  The gameplay is noticeably smoother, and the graphics seem to pop. Each release has been an improvement on the last, and this new release is certainly deserving of your attention this weekend.

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1. Not just apps, but an app store. The current Apple TV has apps. They aren’t advertised as such, but the menu options that lead to MLB, NBA and NHL subscriptions, as well as the Vimeo and YouTube channels are basically apps. While doling out new apps in batches via software updates is appreciated, a real app store is the special sauce that will cause an Apple television to take off.

2. High quality live content. Live video could go a long way toward convincing users to switch ponies and abandon traditional cable or satellite providers for streaming video. Apple has done a good job of bringing sports to the current Apple TV, but it’ll have to deliver pay-per-view events, nationally broadcast live programming, and still more sports to sway users who demand to be kept in the loop and don’t like spoilers.

3. Break the bundle. The aspect of current cable and satellite TV packages that makes them most unpalatable is the bundle; If you’ve ever tried to order a speciality channel on its own, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Breaking up the bundle would probably be the most effective way to tempt users to buy its product, but it’s the part that Apple will probably also have the hardest time striking deals to achieve.

4. Games. A lot of the questions I’m seeing about an Apple television have to do with games. The reason? IOS did (and still does) an amazing job of generating high-quality gaming experiences at a fraction of the price of consoles. Suddenly, people who always thought picking up a controller was a waste of time and money are flinging things at other things like there’s no tomorrow. If Apple can translate its iOS gaming success to an integrated television, iOS gamers will flock to it.

5. Stand-out hardware. One question during today’s Q&A stuck out in particular: Why would Apple make a television set when it could just make a better box? The reason is another potential selling point; specifically, Apple could only justify making its own TV if it makes that TV really amazing. Apple definitely has the pedigree, since it produces industry-leading displays on its mobile devices, computers and computer monitors. Make a TV that dazzles and really looks great in a living room, and you’ve got a big buying incentive right there.

Siri integration and a unified content browsing and playback experience through iCloud and the iTunes media ecosystem are things that could make an Apple television interesting, but they won’t set an industry aflame. That’s what the five points outlined above could do, by reaching out to consumers and providing them with outstanding experiences in areas where a lot of current service offerings fall flat.

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I tested these three games using my 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro under OS X: Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest 2, and Age of Conan. Of the three, Lord of the Rings Online ran the best, Age of Conan ran the worst, and EverQuest 2 ran “just ok.” Parallels 7 still does just Direct X 9, so games like Lord of the Rings that take advantage of Direct X 11 won’t run perfectly.

For benchmarks, I used my current Windows-on-a-Mac gaming setup, which involves both Apple’s own Boot Camp utility (which lets you run Windows natively) and CrossOver (which lets you run Windows apps in OS X without actually installing the Windows OS itself).

The good

The last time I looked at Windows gaming on the Mac, Parallels’s performance noticeably lagged behind the frame rates I got in CrossOver. With Parallels 7, frame rates in both were much closer, getting around 50 FPS in LotRO and 35-40 in EverQuest 2. And since you’re running games in basically a native environment, unlike in CrossOver, you can get games up and running with a minimum of fuss. CrossOver often requires extra configuration and patience to get games running. Also, if you’re close to filling up your Parallels drive, it’s easy to resize it.

I didn’t notice any obvious performance differences between Parallels accessing a Boot Camp partition or Parallels running off its own .pvm file (Parallels’ own native Windows installation container). Both seemed to give me the same frame rates and load times. Even when I put Parallels into a position for it not to succeed, like playing a game while using Handbrake to convert a video file, my MacBook didn’t come to a girding halt. While it was slower, I could still play the game.

The bad

I noticed one consistent issue in playing all the games: right-clicking with the trackpad to look around was uncontrollable. If I plugged in an external mouse, its right button worked just fine. I could get around this problem by adjusting my keybindings in-game to something funky like pressing alt-contol-arrow button, but that’s really a pain to get used to.

Also, you’re going to take a performance hit running in a virtual environment. Running the games in anything other than Full Screen mode (you can still alt-tab or Mission Control back to your OS X apps) in Parallels seemed to cause problems. I had numerous issues loading games past their login screen in Coherence mode; the same problems didn’t crop up nearly as often in Full Screen.

If you play any game or in any situation where reflexes or timing really matter, like a multiplayer shooter or during a raid in an MMO, I can’t recommend a virtualized solution at all. In those cases, you’ll need to be running the game in Boot Camp (or, OS X if you’re lucky and that’s an option).

The ugly

The bane of my computing existence is Windows’ activation process. Given the nature of my freelance work, I’m often blowing my activation limit and need to call Microsoft to get it reset. If you use Boot Camp and create a Parallels virtual from that, you’ll use up two activations.

Also, of all the games I looked at, Age of Conan ran horribly on Parallels, averaging out to about 8 FPS. I was getting 25 in Boot Camp, so it’s not like it’s a stellar performer anyway. I also noticed the avatars in Conan weren’t smooth, as I could see the polygons that made up their shapes under the skinning when running the game in Parallels.

Final thoughts

I’m pretty happy with Parallels 7 for gaming. Having current hardware has a lot to do with it, but Parallels seems to at least come close to the performance I’m used to from CrossOver, without the hassles. After a week or so of testing, I’m going to delete my CrossOver game installs and instead use Parallels for Windows gaming, and Boot Camp when I need to get really serious.

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I was late to the Portal party, having only played it for the first time last year, and despite being exposed to years of hype (the game originally came out in October 2007), it still managed to exceed my expectations. It’s funny, and challenging yet also accessible, so give it a shot even if you’re not usually much of a first-person gamer.

Each level in the game is a series of rooms from which you have to escape, using only your wits and handheld teleportation gun, which fires Portals that allow you to quickly traverse great distances in an instant. If you’re into maddening puzzle games like Unblock Me on the iPhone and iPad, you’ll be amazed at how well a similar concept translates to a game with first-person shooter mechanics. The game holds up surprisingly well despite being four years old now, too.

Portal usually retails for $10 on Steam, and its sequel, released this year, costs $29.99. This is a smart move for Valve, which is likely hoping to encourage folks to grab Portal 2. I still haven’t pulled the trigger on the newer game, but the only thing preventing me from doing so is the knowledge that it’ll be a huge time suck whenever I do start playing.

Getting Portal requires that you first download and install the Steam store, but it doesn’t take long, and the store is actually something you should have on your Mac anyway if you’re at all into gaming. The nice thing about Portal being an older game is that it also doesn’t have very high system requirements; an integrated Intel HD 3000 or higher card should suit you just fine. Plus, since it’s free, there’s no harm in just downloading it and seeing if it runs.

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Nintendo President Satoru Iwata reiterated Thursday that his company is not interested in making software for iPads or iPhones. He told Japanese news site Nikkei (via The Loop) that in fact, such a plan “is absolutely not under consideration,” because in doing so, “Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo.”

Yet preserving what it means to be Nintendo may be giving up a key position in the future of gaming. “Collectively, iPad gamers are showing slightly decreased involvement with gaming on home consoles, mobile phones, and Nintendo handheld consoles,” said Interpret analyst Jason Preston in a press release. “These facts imply that iPad game developers and publishers can definitely reach a new audience on the iPad.”

The iPad’s appeal extends not only to traditional console gamers, but also to a growing portion of people new to digital gaming, says Interpret. People who use their iPads for gaming are increasingly older, with 40 percent falling into the 35-to-65 age group category during its second quarter 2011 survey vs. just 31 percent from its first survey period last year. Many more women are playing, too. Interpret found that the share of female iPad gamers was up to 48 percent during its most recent poll, vs. just 40 percent in 2010.

iPad gamers who are also console gamers also represents a shrinking percentage of the overall group.

It’s understandable sentiment that Iwata would want to preserve Nintendo as-is, as he’s been Nintendo’s president since 2002 and saw it through the flush years of the Wii and DS, both of which were massive successes for the Japanese-based game-maker. Nintendo has also been in the gaming hardware business since 1977, so it has a long history of making both systems and games.

But there are a number of sound business reasons why Nintendo should consider making software for Apple, including flagging sales of its own hardware, a shaky future for new and upcoming devices like the 3DS and Wii U, and the successful example of other companies who’ve followed the same path in the past, like one-time rival Sega.

Nintendo wants a comeback, and I’d like to see it get one, but with the release of 3DS peripherals that correct obvious oversights in the original design, and reports that the Wii U is facing serious technical problems, Iwata’s outright refusal to even consider iOS development seems like yet another backwards step.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Vincent Diamante

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The game, a mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called Please Stay Calm, makes its debut today in the App Store, though only in Canada for now; Massive Damage is cutting its teeth in the Canadian market in preparation for an October U.S. launch. But the new game is worth a look no matter where you happen to live, because it uniquely combines location and personalization with tried and tested models of iPhone gaming success.

A unique twist on success

At its core, Please Stay Calm bears some strong similarities to games such as World War and Crime City. All the games use a store of energy that refreshes over time and can be spent to accomplish things or take action, like engage in combat, for example.

Please Stay Calm tweaks this, making it much more social through global in-game chat and a clever system whereby players (who take on the role of zombie apocalypse survivors) work together to fight off the undead threat. Also unique to Please Stay Calm is a strong focus on location; the game detects your real-life surroundings using the iPhone’s geolocation services, allowing you to set up a defensive bunker in your local Starbucks, for instance.

Massive Damage CEO and Co-Founder Ken Seto told me that the “core of [the] game is centered on providing a truly local social experience.” He says that “people have an affinity for their favorite spots like cafes, bars and even their offices.”

The major appeal of Please Stay Calm, according to Seto, is that “being able to upgrade a real-life location like your office as the biggest baddest safehouse in your city is quite the feeling.” In this way, the location-based elements of Please Stay Calm sound a bit like Foursquare’s mayor mechanism, except that you invest virtual resources, as well as time in a specific place in order to take control of it.

Location: more than just background

Location is about more than just where you do your zombie-fighting in Please Stay Calm. Seto also points out that “characters you run into in the game are local, and you’ll see them in-game time and time again.” City- and safehouse-specific chat will also soon be added, in addition to the global chat option that currently exists. Also, players near your location, and even “non-player Foursquare users automatically help you out if you’re fighting off the zombie hordes in the same location as them,” Seto says.

It’s exactly the kind of rich use of location mechanics that Ryan Kim recently suggested might be the way forward for mobile location services, but in this case, those added value features are extending, rather than replacing the gaming paradigm.

Blended revenue models to suit different tastes

Please Stay Calm is free to play, but uses in-app purchases to allow players to enhance their experience if they wish. The freemium model employed by Massive Damage for this game is designed to “allow people to spend as little or as much as they like,” according to Seto.

The game’s in-app purchases allow you to buy credits, which can then be used to upgrade items and locations. You can also earn credits in other ways, too, and the game does a good job of striking the right balance so that players don’t feel obligated to spend money. There’s also a clever secondary means of earning credits; players can opt to view 10-second videos (essentially advertisements) in exchange for free credits. Seto says they went with this approach because it keeps the app ad-free, while also providing a way for those unwilling to spend on in-app purchases to experience some of the advantages of the game’s freemium model.

For mobile gamers looking for something that takes advantage of the unique abilities of smartphone devices, instead of just making compromises regarding what iOS lacks, Please Stay Calm is an ideal title. Massive Damage also promises episodic content packages, with more cinematics, missions, zombies and weapons coming in at least 10 free chapter upgrades, so the action shouldn’t get stale. Also, the game features tons of great-looking original artwork that gives Please Stay Calm its own unique feel. If you’re Canadian, check it out now. If you’re not, mark your calendars for October and try to be patient.

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Recently Flurry Analytics did some research on how much mobile gamers spend on and within Android and iOS games, the data showing that the average in-app purchase amounts to about $14 per transaction. On Tuesday Flurry gave a deeper dive into what those in-app transactions are for. Two-thirds of the items bought within an app are virtual goods that are consumable, as in they have no lasting value.

The firm looked at 57 million transactions and found the following:

The chart shows that over two-thirds of all items purchased in iOS and Android freemium games are consumable, goods that users deplete. Measured another way, approximately half of all real dollars spent within all apps are for game items consumers don’t keep.

That means, for instance, that most of the time people are buying fertilizer in a farm game or grenades in a war game as opposed to durable goods, such as a building or armor, which you don’t use up.

But the most popular consumable item people buy really shouldn’t be any surprise. It’s “premium” currency, which is usually a way to buy your way into advancing faster in a game. Game makers like it because it prevents players from abandoning games in frustration, but it also lines their pockets. Games that offer these consumable goods make a lot of money for developers, and they are “the best ROI” for game developers, according to Flurry.

For developers looking for the best investment, look no further than free games that offer virtual goods via in-app currency, according to Flurry.

 While the consumer is indeed purchasing virtual items that are most often consumable, what’s most important to understand is the psychology behind these games. In freemium games, consumers are experiencing compelling, immersive entertainment. They feel gratified when they progress, accomplish goals, create a unique world, and in some cases, show off to their friends. In exchange for this gratification, they are willing to spend real money, and lots of it.

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