Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the Ash II: Shadows App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is now available for $.99 for the silver edition and $2.99 for the gold edition for a limited time – today through February 21st.  Developed by SRRN Games, Ash II: Shadows follows the events of the award-winning Ash, featuring a new story, quests, and characters set in the world of Aghaus.

In Ash II: Shadows, the world of Aghaus is once again in peril, and the heroes of old must heed the call to embark on another dangerous adventure. Players join characters Nicholas and Damien as they pursue new quests, discover ancient mysteries, and find unexpected allies.  With a brilliantly original tale and stunning HD hand-drawn graphics, Ash II: Shadows features heart pounding classic RPG gameplay with innovative touch-based controls.

Ash II: Shadows is available now on the App Store for iPad, iPhone, and the iPod Touch at www.itunes.com/appstore.

I took the opportunity to check out two, well, old games, on the iPad 2, one of them being the original Infinity Blade and Rage HD. And you know what? I actually like these two games when played on the iPad 2, compared to playing them on the iPhone. In the case of Infinity Blade, the extra screen space allowed me to execute moves better, whereas in Rage HD, Mutant Bash TV looked way clearer than on the iPhone.

I guess the new A5 processor and upgraded GPU have a hand in delivering an awesome looking experience on the device as well for both games.

So, like the title suggests, what games have you enjoyed more on the iPad or iPad 2, compared to playing them on the iPhone? Not all titles can get the same treatment, some games do not benefit from the extra screen space or the processing power. Sound off in the comments section below while I go back to reviewing some exciting new iOS titles.

Yay, fans of Sam & Max rejoice as once again, Telltale Games is bringing the dynamic duo onto iOS devices. This time, the first episode of the classic Telltale saga, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, titled “Ice Station Santa” is now available on the iTunes App Store as a universal app.

As an extra incentive to gamers, Telltale has included an explosive mini-game and witty soundboard that can only be found in the iOS version! A fun and frenetic Sam & Max ‘Whack da Ratz’ mini-game lets players compete for the top spot in the Freelance Police Hall of Fame. Sam & Max buffs can also spend their free time creating new and deranged quotes uttered by their favorite characters with the all new soundboard.

Here’s a quick description of what you can expect in Episode 1 – ‘Ice Station Santa’:

He’s the most ancient and powerful opponent they’ve ever faced, a hairy, bloated, pagan God – Santa Claus! Can the Freelance Police make sense of this Christmas conundrum in time to save the world’s children from a holiday tainted by tears, turmoil, and Torture-Me-Elmer?

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space – Episode 1 for iPad and iPhone is now available for $6.99 as a universal app!  You won’t have to wait too long to get the rest of your Beyond Time and Space fix, episodes 2-5 are coming soon.  So grab your iPad or iPhone and jump into the DeSoto with Sam & Max as they face every murderous robot, insidious goldfish, foul mouthed rat and gothic, German vampire that is thrown their way.

Check out the app over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sam-max-beyond-time-space/id474013188?mt=8

The folks at Telltale Games have been very busy this New Year. First up, they are having their Epic iOS Sale from the 19th of January to the 29th of January. This ten-day sales sees a truly great selection of games going for just USD 0.99. This includes Sam & Max: The Penal Zone Episode 1, the Puzzle Agent Series and the Hector: Badge of Carnage games.

Also, Telltale Games is thrilled to announce that the fourth episode of Law & Order: Legacies, Nobody’s Child is now available on iOS.  Based on NBCUniversal’s Emmy-winning Law & Order TV series, Law & Order: Legacies allows players to work cases as both investigators and district attorneys alongside the full roster of fan-favorite characters from the Law & Order franchise.

iOS gamers can now access the next case of Law & Order: Legacies, ‘Nobody’s Child ‘ via in-app purchase, and available to those who have previously bought the series Multi-Pack for $12.99. The remaining 3 episodes in the season long saga will be released soon after and delivered right to your touch screen device. Check out the game over here.

Last but not least, the adventure continues in Episode 3 of Telltale’s cinematic journey, Jurassic Park: The Game – Episode 3, “The Depths”! Available for immediate download, check out the next chapter in the saga of Gerry Harding’s crew and their perilous adventures as they flee Isla Nublar.

Episode 3: “The Depths” – The group looks for escape through the dark maintenance tunnels that connect the park, while being hunted by relentless pursuers and carnivorous dinosaurs along the way. Uneasy partnerships teeter as the simmering tensions explode and the survivors begin to turn on each other. Check out the game right over here.

Awesome indie dev (and also CAPS LOCK aficionado) MADFINGER Games has announced the first details on SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE, the new multiplayer game following the SHADOWGUN series which will debut in the first quarter of 2012 exclusively for NVIDIA Tegra 3-powered devices.

With SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE, Madfinger is expanding the multiplayer entertainment potential of smartphones, iOS devices and tablets. SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE will support Android mobile devices powered by the NVIDIA Tegra mobile processor, and will be featured on NVIDIA’s Tegra Zone app, where consumers can find optimized games for Tegra-powered super phones and tablets.

SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE allows players to challenge up to seven friends to multiplayer battles in four different fantastic environments. They can choose one of eight different characters and several game modes, deathmatch or team deathmatch, that divides players into two groups of mutants and bounty hunters. Players can connect online via Wi-Fi to battle friends anywhere.

The professional console-quality graphics and easy-to-use controls of the original SHADOWGUN game are all intact. In addition, SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE brings new control elements such as sprint and roll, wider arsenal to be upgradable and character’s ranking, that unlocks new elements during playing. For an even better gaming experience, SHADOWGUN: DEADZONE will also support game pads and voice chat.

I’m not sure how to categorise Zombie Wars for the iPad, but one thing is certain, it’s one darn cool app. Basically it allows users to insert their images into a digital comic book which features the users as the main characters in a zombie outbreak story. Showcasing the impressive power and innovative features behind PortableYou™, a new platform for creating 3D customizable avatars from 2D facial photos, Zombie Wars is the first product for consumers that utilizes Image Metrics’ technology to produce and share personalized content.

In Zombie Wars, users can cast themselves and friends in a witty tale of medical science gone awry, as one of three characters – the evil Dr. Reinhart, journalist Adrian Cooper, or a criminal turned zombie. By uploading or snapping a picture with the iPad 2′s front-facing camera and using the PortableYou processing system, Zombie Wars transforms regular photos into stylized images of user’s faces consistent with the comic artwork.

In a special “casting” section, users can create customized, cover art posters of their characters and share them via Facebook, Twitter and email from within the app.

“Zombie Wars is our first consumer application, a great story that also gives users the ability to create and share a fun experience that takes advantage of our avatar creation software,” said Robert Gehorsam, CEO of Image Metrics. “Combining PortableYou’s rich feature set and ease-of-use with the iPad’s functionality, Zombie Wars also shows off a publishing engine that gives users  — and other content creators — the ability to create their own customized content with minimal effort or technical expertise.”

PortableYou is a groundbreaking platform for developers as well as for online and mobile entertainment, social network and communications companies. PortableYou provides end-users with the ability to instantly generate customizable 3D avatars from facial photos. Using PortableYou, Zombie Wars takes a single image of the user’s face, then utilizes server processing in conjunction with the Unity3D engine to render the image, wrapping it around an adaptive 3D wireframe that molds to fit the context-appropriate position in the comic.

To develop the story for Zombie Wars, Image Metrics turned to the creative team of writer Jon Price (“Magus”), artist Wayne Nichols (“STAR WARS: The Force Unleashed”), colorist Charlie Kirchoff (“Doctor Who”) and designer Kurt Bieg of Simple Machine.  The result is an entertaining tour de force that fuses the iPad’s media and social capabilities with Image Metrics technology.

Check out the app right over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zombie-wars/id491149222?mt=8

As expected, there’s a whole slew of iOS games being released on the iTunes App Store just before the Christmas holiday season break. And yes, the bulk of them are available for free!

Sparkin’ Apps Spearfishing 2 is the sequel to Spearfishing Pro. This first-person adventure shooter that lets players swim, dive and hunt across various aquatic locations as they chase after the biggest fish in the sea. Scuba Divers, adventure gamers, and iOS fans alike can download the game now on the App Store for free. Check it out over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spearfishing-2/id486077858?mt=8

HandyGames’ Android hit, Happy Vikings makes the transition to iOS devices and is now available via the iTunes App Store for free! Happy Vikings is a unique blend between jump’n’run game and stacking puzzle. The game features frantic action gameplay as well as the fun and satisfaction that come with stacking and clearing huge block combos. Check it out over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happy-vikings/id467621872?mt=8

South Korean uber developer and publisher GAMEVIL has released the fourth and latest game continuing the award-winning ZENONIA series, titled ZENONIA 4. GAMEVIL’s flagship action RPG title makes its HD debut for the first time and besides the amazing looking graphics, there are new gameplay mechanics never seen before in the series. Like the other 2 games mentioned above, ZENONIA 4 is available for FREE on the iTunes App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zenonia-4/id476266112?mt=8

For fans of Alawar Entertainment’s Treasures of Montezuma series of games, the highly anticipated third chapter in the wildly successful series has arrived for iOS devices. The Treasures of Montezuma 3 is a visually stunning match 3 adventure in which success depends on the player’s ability to trigger Power Totems by matching groups of similar artifacts. With over 160 arcade levels, 42 puzzle levels and two difficulty modes, there is plenty of action to go around. Check out the game: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id475298522

Other new releases:

• Roof Riders (FREE): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/parkour-roof-riders/id454180362?ls=1&mt=8
• Gravity Cave (FREE): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id488682403

One of the more enjoyable comic strips that I enjoy reading with the morning paper happens to be Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate. For those who are not familiar with this popular strip, it’s about a sixth-grader, with a somewhat smart mouth. LOL. Night & Day Studios has come up with an app befitting of the comics strip, in the form of Big Nate: Comix By U!

Users can now create their own comix, using Lincoln Peirce’s art from the bestselling Big Nate book series. All of Nate’s best friends and rivals are included in the app, his buddies Francis and Teddy, rival Gina, crush Jenny, his neighbour’s Spitsy, and even his Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Godfrey, a.k.a Godzilla!

The backgrounds include the P.S. 38 school gym, lockers, library, Nate’s bedroom, the neighborhood, and even Mrs. Godfrey’s classroom—everywhere that Nate goes. Users have three ways to create their comix, including Story Starter, Fill in the Blanks and Start from Scratch. Once done, the comix can be shared to a friend or put up on a gallery.

As an added bonus, Big Nate: Comix By U! comes with five original app comix created by Lincoln Peirce himself. The app is available on the iTunes App Store for USD 3.99. Check it out over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/big-nate-comix-by-u!/id483622389?mt=8.

Christmas has always been known as a time for giving and we would like to kickstart this year’s Nine Over Ten 9/10 Christmas 2011 Gift Guide with a question: why not gift a gift and do your bid for charity as well? The Humble Indie Bundle 4 is the perfect avenue for this. Not only can you purchase this bundle which consists of amazing indie games such as Gratuitous Space Battles, Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip Runner and many more, as a gift, part of the purchase goes to American Red Cross and Child’s Play Charity. Check it out over here.

If you are feeling a little more generous, you can always head over to the nearest NGO or Charity out there and donate. Here are some organizations that are closer to home in my case:

• National Cancer Council of Malaysia: http://www.makna.org.my/
• National Council for the Blind: http://www.ncbm.org.my/
• National Kidney Foundation: http://www.nkf.org.my/

OK, with that charity bit out of the way here’s our annual gift guide for Christmas 2011, this time it has something for everyone, I think, ranging for the bookworms to tech heads (I’m actually adapting my Amazon wish list for this year’s Christmas guide):

Books

1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Hardcover)
2. Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape: The Remarkable Life of Jacques Anquetil, the First Five-Times Winner of the Tour de France by Paul Howard (Paperback)

Electronic Devices and Gadgets

1. Apple iPad 2
2. Kindle Fire
3. Arduino UNO Board
4. Grado iGi In-Ear Headphones

Video Games

1. Nintendo 3DS
2. Batman Arkham City Collectors Edition
3. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Collectors Edition

Movies

1. Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) [Blu-ray]
2. Harry Potter: The Complete 8 Film Collection [Blu-ray]

Music

1. Torches (Music CD) by Foster the People
2. Pickin’ Up The Pieces (Music CD) by Fitz & the Tantrums.

If you need more gift ideas, check out our super popular guide articles:

• Ultimate Guide to Getting the PlayStation Vita (click here)
• Ultimate Guide to Nintendo 3DS Accessories (click here)
• Ultimate Guide to Nintendo DSi LL/XL Accessories (click here)
• Ultimate Guide to Sony PSP Go Accessories (click here)
• Nintendo DSi Accessories Guide (click here)

For all you cooking aficionados out there, the Recipes Genius app for the iPhone and iPad is available for free on the iTunes App Store for a limited time only until the 5th of December. Originally priced at USD 4.99, the app boasts 485 recipes from a broad range of categories. Check it out over here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/recipes-genius/id477962838?mt=8