Sega has released a number of classic Genesis games on the App Store- Sonic the Hedgehog [$5.99], Sonic the Hedgehog 2 [$5.99], Golden Axe [$2.99], Streets of Rage [$2.99], and as of last night, Ecco the Dolphin [$2.99] and Space Harrier II [99¢]. In the past we’ve been increasingly critical of Sega releasing these emulated games, as while the games wrapped in the emulator are undoubtedly classics, the emulator itself leaves much to be desired.

Revisiting these games with my iPhone 4 has revealed that Apple has finally released hardware that is fast enough to properly run Sega’s emulator (although I have had weird crashing issues with Sonic 2). If you’ve got an iPhone 4, the games run substantially better than the 3GS/3rd generation iPod touch, leaving the touch controls as the only issue. If you’re stuck in the world of the iPhone 3G or 2nd Generation iPod touch, you’re still better off skipping all of these because the performance really isn’t that great. The games are playable, yes, but not a good experience by any means.

Anyway, Ecco the Dolphin is an action adventure side scroller released on the Sega Genesis in 1992. In the game you play as a dolphin, ramming in to things and using your sonar to both talk to other friendly sea creatures and interact with various objects in the game world. When I played the game the first time around on my Genesis, I thought it was surprisingly difficult as you need to manage Ecco’s air supply while navigating vast underwater mazes. Drowning over and over was not something I was expecting to get myself in to when I first saw the cute box art.

There’s a fairly extensive library of clips on YouTube of people playing the game in various emulators:

Ecco the Dolphin is just as much of a classic as the other games Sega has released, and really should be played by anyone who considers themselves a gamer who hasn’t yet. If you want to go back in time even further, Space Harrier II was a launch title for the Genesis and debuted with the system in mid-August of 1989. Like most games of the time, Space Harrier II came packed with a nonsensical story where you’re searching out a distress call from the 214th sector in the year 6236. You run around on a pseudo-3D checkerboard landscape shooting your laser at anything that crosses your path.

Like Ecco, there are no shortage of Space Harrier II gameplay videos captured from various emulators on YouTube:

Space Harrier II hasn’t aged as well as the other classics Sega has released, but it’s still pretty cool to take a look at what was considered cutting-edge mind blowing graphics over 20 years ago. But like all these games, the touch controls of the Genesis emulator on the iPhone aren’t ideal and the framerate is low on older devices. Because of this, they’re all hard to really recommend, but at least they exist in some form on the App Store if you’re determined to revisit these classics on your iPhone.

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EA has yet to announce a release date or pricing, but judging by how they’ve handled other pre-release games in the past on their Facebook, R-Type will likely appear on the App Store very soon. They’re claiming the game will be 100% true to the original, which seems like a lofty promise to make, but I’m keeping everything I have crossed that they manage to deliver. Tilt, touch, and virtual d-pad controls are included with multiple difficulty levels which will hopefully bring the difficulty of the game down to something a normal human can complete in their lifetime.

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Revolutionary Concepts sent us a new screenshot and a note saying they are working around the clock on their port of Data East’s arcade classic Karate Champ to the iPhone. The partial list of features include:

• Dual Stick Control (no D-Pad or buttons).
• Virtual arcade cabinet surround (no thumbs covering the action)
• 1 Player vs CPU over 12 environments
• 2 Player Mode via Bluetooth and WIFI
• all the bonus rounds
• all the classic 80’s sounds
• Super large Character Option
• Old school scanlines on/off

Karate Champ was a 1984 arcade game that was one of the first fighting games and was later ported to the Apple II and Commodore 64. They are hoping to get the iPhone version of the game out by April.

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Designed by code guru Charles Cecil, Broken Sword has a long and celebrated history in the video game world, and Revolution Software has just dropped us a line to announce that protagonists George Stobbard and Nico Collard are now heading to the iPhone.

Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut promises an update on the adventure classic that utilises the interface and control mechanism put together for the remake of Beneath a Steel Sky, which should make the puzzle solving and award-winning narrative very accessible.

“We were absolutely thrilled with the reaction to our first iPhone and iPod touch release,” says Charles Cecil, managing director at Revolution Software. “We’re particularly excited to be introducing [Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut] to a whole new audience.

“I am confident that the quality of the original adventure coupled with significant updates and new assets will ensure that the game appeals both to new players as well as those that played the original first time around.”

The game follows the adventure of Nico Collard as she races against time to uncover a sinister conspiracy linked to an ancient secret.

Artist Dave Gibbons has been drafted in once again to put together some all new cut-scenes and animation, while a similar context-sensitive help system will provide a bit of in-game assistance when the puzzles get too much.

Apparently we can expect the game within a month, though there’s no price announcement as yet. Stay tuned for more Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut iPhone news.

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Taito impressed the hell out of us with its iPhone revamp of the original shmup in Space Invaders Infinity Gene, which also just made it onto our top ten list of 2009’s iPhone games.

To celebrate the New Year, Taito has just dropped us a line to announce that a major 2.0 update has gone live for Space Invaders Infinity Gene that, amongst other things, delivers OpenFeint connectivity to the awesome shmup.

This will bring global leaderboards to the three main categories (High Score, Number of Chains, Number of Nagoya Attacks) and separate rankings for the standard game and music stages. There are now also 50 achievements – five of which are secret – while high scores and unlocked awards can be uploaded to Facebook and Twitter in-app.

The Infinity Gene 2.0 update also delivers ten new stages which are unlocked as the Evolution Gauge is filled, and six of these new levels will feature alternate versions of the boss battles.

The superb music stages (one of the game’s best features) have also been expanded and improved. The alternate bosses from the new levels will appear (under certain conditions), song and title information is displayed at the beginning of the stage, and players can rate the music stages on a five star scale and can even share music stage recommendations via Facebook and Twitter.

This is the second title Taito has given OpenFeint support to, and is a great improvement on an already excellent game in Space Invaders Infinity Gene. Hit the App Store button below to go get it.

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If you’re a child of 80’s video games like me, few games likely bring back more traumatic memories of horrifying difficulty than Ghosts ‘n Goblins. While the game was originally released in arcades in 1985, it wasn’t until 1986 that Ghosts ‘n Goblins cursed the NES with its presence and quickly grew in fame as one of the most difficult games of all time. Over the years there have been many sequels, ports, and remakes of the game with the most recent being Ghosts ‘n Goblins Gold Knights [App Store] for the iPhone.

So what has changed over the years? Well, the most noticeable thing are the sprite-based graphics from days of old have been replaced with a 2.5D world with all kind of new animations and environmental effects. It’s hard to say how much this improves the game though, as the textures are low resolution, the animations appear to be almost intentionally ridiculous, and what’s worse is the game doesn’t run very smoothly even on my iPhone 3GS.

The difficulty has been significantly decreased from the original. You can now absorb multiple hits from enemies before dying, and there are a whole array of additional weapons and power ups to be found in the game. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the challenge in the game now comes from negotiating the inherent lack of precision in the virtual D-Pad controls. Similar to how we felt about Earthworm Jim, if your memories of Ghosts ‘n Goblins involve a physical D-Pad, you will likely have an uncomfortably awkward adjustment period of missing jumps and falling in to pits.

Because of the increased life bar and chests with power-ups littering the game, the only real threat that the monsters you come across pose is knocking you backwards in to a pit. At the end of each level there’s a boss, but the gimmick of each boss only amounts to dodging different things. Levels feature multiple check points, and it seems like there’s always a checkpoint just before a boss so if you don’t beat them the first time you will almost assuredly beat them the second.

There is an in-game store where you can buy access to various cheats for 99¢ each. These cheats range from infinite lives to stronger armor and weapons. Unfortunately, there’s no “don’t fall in pits constantly” cheat you can buy, so none of them seem really that useful. Since after you die you’re able to select the last level you were on and start from that point, even having infinite lives doesn’t help that much.

Video by AppBank

Despite the game’s many flaws, it’s still Ghosts ‘n Goblins, and I doubt I’m alone in enjoying this game just because of that. Everything from the map scrolling across the screen between deaths to your guy running around in his underwear when you take enough damage to lose your armor is in place. If you’re into nostalgia, Ghosts ‘n Goblins does deliver but, otherwise, the iPhone version of the game can’t really stand on its own. If this is the first you’ve heard of Ghosts ‘n Goblins, you’d probably be better off playing it on a real console with a real d-pad, though it will likely cost you more than .99.

App Store Link: Ghosts ‘n Goblins Gold Knights, .99

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We’re not sure how long this notice has been in place, but a reader trystero  an announcement by Digital Leisure that they will be bringing Dragon’s Lair to the iPhone due to popular demand.

The “Fall” timeframe makes us think this notice has been in place for some time, but we’re still hopeful the game will arrive sooner or later.

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