When Crime City debuted, sweeping conclusions were made that it would fill the void in the iOS market for a new Grand Theft Auto (GTA). Others drew on the fact that former Zynga GM Ken Chiu was CEO of the new company and claimed his debut game would lean more towards a standard Farmville or Mafia Wars, backed by the bland, generic name.

In a rare display of universal foresight, it turns out that everyone was right.

Like Farmville, you have to build your city up. Depending on the strategy and the goals of the gamer, it can end up as an urban ghost town of empty buildings or a metropolitan culture mecca with statues, decorations and stores.

Like GTA, the game boasts a variety of cars and weapons you can acquire. Unlike it, though, most of these are gained by spending money, but you gain that money by fighting, mugging and robbing. A crime boss has to keep his city in line, and that requires no small amount of effort. As anyone with a criminal justice degree can tell you, controlling a group of criminals requires a firm hand and lots of time.

Also like Farmville and Mafia Wars, the game’s lifeblood exists in social media. Though you can play with no social interaction whatsoever, the structure of Crime City wholly encourages the game to act as a virtual thug-life playground for your network. You can connect with other players by sharing your unique nine-digit code. Once connected, the success of others in your mob helps your own progress in the game.

If you find you need some time to devote to other activities (school, work, sleep), you don’t have to worry about your empire falling out of your grasp. The program continues to run while you’re away so you can collect money, participate in fights and build your influence in your neighborhood without being on the app.

With a little effort and some money, your inventory can boast hammers, combat shotguns, pistols or even a tommy gun. The game’s graphics look innocent enough, but you can use these weapons to execute other gang members and pull off heists. Players reach new areas each time they level up until they reach level 40. Assuming you have some time to do the initial leveling up, the app is totally worth trying out.

There are a variety of maps – from an industrial estate to sandy beaches and city skylines; all with fun obstacles and jumps. The way you control the bike is actually quite intuitive. Illusion Labs AB have ditched the usual technique of tilting the phone and have gone for an entirely different approach. You have to put one finger on the saddle to pedal, and one on the handlebars to steer. To perform tricks you have to move your fingers in a certain way – for example, to perform a “tailwhip” (where the tail of the bike spins around and the handlebars remain stationary), you flick the finger on the saddle and then release it. To stop the tailwhip for landing you simply place your finger back on the saddle. You do the same thing but with your other finger to perform a “barspin”. It’s quite difficult to explain but it makes sense when you actually play it.

For each trick you perform you gain points, but by doing this alone you cannot progress to the next stages. You have to earn something called “adrenaline points” by completing different challenges on each map. One example of a challenge is: “Ride the entire course at full speed without crashing”. You need a certain number of adrenaline points to continue. This game is far from easy however and will keep you trying for hours.

There are a couple of minor downsides to this game. Inevitably with such high graphics, this game is a real battery-drainer so make sure you have a charger handy if you are playing this on the move. It’s also £2.99 which is quite expensive as far as iPhone games go, although I think the price is worth it because the game play is so fun. The only thing missing from this game is a free roam option. If they release this in a future update then this game would be no doubt worthy of 5/5. For the moment though, I will give it a 4/5, although it definitely ranks high up in my favourite iPhone games and will certainly be staying in my games folder.

iPwnGamers Score: 4/5

The original version required you to use your mouse to pilot the aircraft through the tunnel but the developers have capitalized on the iPhone’s touch technology to control the chopper. The controls are so simple a trained chimp could play the game; you tap and hold to make the copter to up and you let go to make it drop down. Easy. Personally though, I find that your tapping finger slightly obscures your view of any upcoming obstacles. This is the nature of the beast though and something that makes the game that little bit more taxing than the original internet version. Indeed, the taxing element of the game is what keeps it appealing.

The tunnel starts off comfortably wide but the further you get the narrower it becomes and to make things even trickier the number of randomly placed blocks increase over time. This game is perfect for challenging your friends and the ability to automatically upload your score to your Facebook page makes it perfect for those with too much time on their hands. The game is simple enough that anyone can get good at it and once you start you can’t stop, as getting a better and better score becomes an obsession. Games like Copter thrive on frustrating players to the point of obsession and that is what makes them so popular. Be warned though, the endless drive for perfection only gets more frustrating and as you post further distances that are increasingly difficult to beat your iPhone may start to bear the brunt of your anger.

When Life Hands You A Lemon…

This idea is reflected in the ability to totally skip the animated selling section of the game and move straight to the end of day profit and loss sheet. The game won’t appeal to those wanting a pure, all out video game experience but for those of you like to analyse stats, predict consumer trends or just dream that you own your own business then this is the game for you. There are two basic options: career mode and challenge mode. Career mode sees you set out on your capitalist adventure with a small working capital and an unlimited amount of time to build up your business. This will be the natural starting point for most players as it allows you to find your feet in the game and understand what works and what doesn’t in the cut throat world of lemonade sales.

Once you start to make a decent profit you can increase the efficiency of your business with new equipment and better stands. In essence the main aim of the game is to buy every item available and become a lemonade selling dynamo. This is the main draw of the game and something that will keep you coming back until you’ve established a solid reputation and a healthy profit margin. On the downside, once you’ve made your business a success the game begins to lose its appeal as there is nothing else left to achieve and while your bank balance gets bigger there is nothing left to spend it on.

The challenge mode helps combat this as it is a scaled down version of the game and gives you exactly one month to build up as much profit as you can. This section of the game can be re-visited over and over because it always resets and the desire to beat your previous score is always there. However, this only maintains a flicker of interest in the game and after a while you will find yourself making only fleeting visits to play the game. Lemonade Tycoon starts off as a sweet game that will quench your thirst for entertainment but after a while, like all fruits, the lemons begin to spoil and the taste becomes a little bitter. The game is certainly more than a 5 minute wonder and it is definitely a well made but you’ll find it hard to gather any enthusiasm for it after you’ve made it to the top of the lemon tree.

Florent Tournade, a French developer who worked on Alone in the Dark and WALL•E for the next-gen consoles, is now working on his first iPhone and iPod Touch game. Kerosen 3D is a combat flight simulator that gives users the opportunity to navigate through space and pick a point on the planet where they want to start their combat flight. The 3D engine of the game renders around one million pollygons per second, it sounds like a lot and it is a lot too. Via WiFi users can compete against each other and it’s possible that Kerosen 3D will be updated with an online multiplayer mode as well.

Sim City is expected to retail for $9.99.

Ngmoco‘s latest iPhone and iPod Touch game called Dr. Awesome is now available in the App Store for $1.99. You need to perform microsurgery to isolate and eradicate the mutagens that have infected your friends personalized from your iPhone or iPod Touch contact list. Cut and trap the offending viruses by guiding the micro scalpel on your screen with the accelerometer. Here’s a list of features in the game:

• Use your Tilt-guided micro scalpel to perform microsurgery
• Isolate 16 types of viruses and bacteria to save your patients
• Collect power-ups to help give you an edge in the ER
• Save your friends, personalized from your contact list
• Enjoy the powerful visual styles from Escalation Studios, i-am-8-bit Productions and Lord Mesa

Yoot Saito, the developer of Seaman and Odama for consoles, has announced that they’re working on Gabo!, a game in which you get to play god. You get to play with Gabo, a Peking Man who influeces his environment to grow. The game will be controlled via the touch-screen and it’s due to come out on the Japanese market next month.