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The force is strong with Star Wars: Trench Run [$4.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone and iPod touch, as it’s just hit the iTunes App Store.

Features include Force Powers, 3D trench flying, X-Wing style, easter eggs (you tease!), and did we say 3D Death Star trench flying?

If this is the iPhone Star Wars game you’ve been looking for, go get it and tell us what you think!

For those of us looking for that pinnacle action RPG for the iPhone, Ravensword: The Fallen King [$6.99 - iTunes]has been released. This game looks absolutely fantastic! I have only played this game for a few minutes (enough to leave the inn and wander the town. I will have a more thorough update later) but the controls are great and there are lots of options to tweak the performance based on your hardware.

The character and environment detail is some of the best I have seen on the iPhone. The game is similar to other games such as Oblivion in this genre. There are NPCs to interact with and several weapons and items to use. There has not been a game quite like this so far on the iPhone, so it will be exciting to see its reception in the App Store. I for one, know what I will be playing this weekend!

Call of Duty is a huge franchise, and what better way to expand that franchise then to unleash it, World of War style, on the iPhone and iPod touch — and add Zombies. Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99 - iTunes link] contains only one map right now, “Nacht der Untoten” (Night of the undead) but allows 4 player multiplay via WiFi and over the internet, or 2 over Bluetooth. There are three control schemes, achievements, leader-boards, and the promise of in-app purchases (map expansions?) later.

So, Call of Duty fans and Zombie fanatics, how’re you liking your first iPhone experience?

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

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Oh yeah — Looks like in the near future that OnLive thing might just take off and lucky iPhone users will be able to play along with their PC gaming friends. However, many roadblocks still exist. Steve Pearlman OnLive’s CEO Says:

I’m afraid we are not announcing a date for availability of OnLive on particular cell phones just yet. We have further development to do, and we need approvals from some cell phone makers before we can release OnLive to the public. So, for now, OnLive on a cell phone is only a technology demo. But, for those of you who have been asking about OnLive on cell phones, the answer is yes, it is coming. And, it is REALLY cool.

The OnLive service will begin in Winter 2009, however they are currently looking for beta testers. You can sign up here.

[via Engadget Mobile]

It looks like Apple is using its rejection power for good this time — removing games built on the Unity engine which included private-API calls that could be used to steal private user information like your iPhone’s phone number.

Not all of the rejected/removed games were engaged in privacy violations (or even had the network capability to exploit it), but Apple isn’t taking any chances following the Storm8 lawsuit. Touch Arcade has the details:

The Unity engine currently uses the two private API calls that Storm8 allegedly exploited to steal user data, NSGetEnviron and excserver. Mantas Puida of Unity Technologies explains these two API’s utilized by the Unity engine serve the following functions:

_NSGetEnviron is used by Mono runtime to provide implementation of .NET core API method: Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable().

exc_server is also used by Mono runtime to provide graceful NULL reference exception handling.

The Unity engine, however, has been updated to remove the offending API calls, and the games are being recompiled and resubmitted to the App Store. Hopefully this will keep users’ data safe from unscrupulous developers, while the scrupulous ones continue to turn out great games.

[Touch Arcade via TUAW]

Apple is looking to hire an experienced multimedia engineer for the iPhone and iPod touch, who’s a passionate gamer and has shipped at least one “AAA” game in the last few years.

While first-party titles are a mainstay, and main point of attraction for dedicated gaming platforms like Nintendo (Mario), Microsoft (Halo), and Sony (Little Big Planet), so far all Apple has offered its “funnest iPod ever” is Texas Hold’em [$4.99 - iTunes link] back in 2007.

Just what could Apple be brewing now? Anyone imagine what a first-party Apple gaming franchise could be?

[via AppleInsider]

Today’s TiPb Top 5 will be directed towards our iPhone and iPod touch wielding readers who love racing games, and It’s a follow up to last years TiPb Grand Prix. Just like our other TiPb’s top 5 must-have posts, all of these applications are available in the App Store. For the full overview, follow us after the break!

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Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata loves his MacBook and his iPhone, and firmly believes Nintendo and Apple aren’t competitors (they appeal to different customers), and any talk of it makes him uncomfortable.

Yet Apple is most assuredly aiming at gaming (even if John Carmack thinks it’s between clenched teeth), especially with the funner iPod touch ever, and its game-heavy marketing.

With Nintendo profits down 52% for the first half of the year, and Apple selling record numbers of iPhones and reporting 100,000 apps and 2,000,000,000 downloads (with games weighed heavily among them).

Even with a dedicated gaming device like the DS (and perhaps a new platform on the way next year?), and a high-profile set of first-party properties like Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Pokémon, etc. those are tough numbers to look at. And Nintendo isn’t kidding themselves about that:

“If we can’t make clear why customers pay a lot of money to play games on Nintendo hardware and Nintendo software and differentiate ourselves from games on the mobile phone or iPhone, then our future is dark.”

Still, there are no plans for a WiiPhone (no matter how cool that might sound to us!), though an Amazon Kindle-like model, where the end-user doesn’t see any of the cell network bills, does appeal to Iwata.

Likewise, we can’t hold our breath for even older 1st party GameBoy titles to show up on the iPhone either. At least not anytime soon.

[Wall Street Journal -- thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

(Settlers of Catan Forum Review by cjvitek. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Settlers of Catan [$4.99 - iTunes link] for the iPhone. The long awaited game has made it’s debut…so how does it stack up?

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