Upcoming iPhone games: Dead Trigger, Fieldrunners 2, and more

Every Friday, we like to finish off the week by looking ahead and talking about the iPhone and iPad games that are just over the horizon.

If you're a developer behind a hugely popular game, there are basically two avenues to go down. You could make the full-featured sequel that fans are clamouring for, with a whole lot more of everything they liked. That's Fieldrunners 2, for you.

Or you could try your hand at something a little different. Done a third person cover-based shooter? Try a first-person zombie blaster. Or, if you're really brave, something completely fresh. So, after making a top-down shmup, One Man Left's doing an async strategy game.

Note: Dates, prices, and features are subject to change at the whim of the developer and Apple's approval team. Dates were correct at time of publication.

Outwitters
By One Man Left Studios - out on iPhone and iPad in June (source)

The iPhone has become the perfect platform for asynchronous strategy games - those turn-based multiplayer matches where you're free to quit the app while your opponent mulls over his next move.

Outwitters, from Tilt to Live developer One Man Left Studios, already looks to be our next addiction.

Two teams square off on a hex-based board, each hoping to outmanoeuvre its opponent and wreck its base. You get a limited number of moves and spawns in each turn, so you have to play resourcefully.

The three races - the robotic Feedback, the maritime Scallywags, and the saccharine-sweet Adorables - are nearly identical (each possessing heavies, soldiers, runners, medics, and snipers), but every faction has a unique unit.

The game is flush with multiplayer modes (including pass-the-handset and quick online pick-up matches), but the real star is a ranked league game, where ultra-competitive players will climb the ranks from Fluffy to Super-Titan.

Outwitters will be free to download, and you'll get given one faction to play as. If you want to unlock the other impossibly cute, ultra-expressive armies, you'll need to cough up a few coins.

One Man Left submitted the game to Apple last week, so all signs point to Outwitters appearing on the App Store on June 28th.

Dead Trigger
By Madfinger Games - out on iPhone and iPad in June (source)

Dead Trigger looks good. Seriously good. "Is-that-really-running-on-a-phone?" good, in fact. But, what else did you expect from Madfinger, the studio behind Gears of War-alike Shadowgun?

It's at this juncture, though, that I should point out that the game's plot makes about as much sense as any brainless zombie B movie. As the world's economy crumbled into bits, the planet's richest fat cats made their escape - and released a debilitating virus as a going-away gift.

Now, you're one of the scant few humans left, in a world of bloodthirsty monsters. Considering the circumstances, a sensible storyline is probably the last thing on your mind.

So, you get to work with a range of (insanely detailed) weapons for dismembering, disemboweling, and otherwise disengaging your undead enemies. Ragdoll physics and detachable limbs should make for some genuinely gross and visceral kills.

There's a whole city to explore, filled with survivors to save and supplies to secure. You can either follow along with the storyline or embark on random missions - up to you. The game's out at the end of June, the developer says.

Fieldrunners 2
By Subatomic Studios - out on iPhone in June (source)

Fieldrunners was a breakout iOS hit, and producing one of the first tower defence games on the App Store proved a big boon to Subatomic Studios. But, since there are now roughly six billion different tower defence apps out there, how will Fieldrunners 2 compete?

Well, it's got the usual stuff you'd expect in a game with a big '2' in the title. More levels, more weapons, more enemies. But, the studio has promised a fair bit more than that.

For one, enemy AI has been completely revamped. Foes no longer plod along like brain-dead robots, oblivious to things going on around them. They're smart, aware of each other, and capable of moving like a swarm of locusts. They organically adapt their movements as you change your strategy.

Trenches and bridges are now introduced into levels - these ditches and structures let you mix the open-field tower defence that made Fieldrunners famous with the more typical fixed-path approach of other defence games.

Fieldrunners 2 is out on iPhone at the end of June. Subatomic says that an iPad version will follow about a month later.