Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The phone and tablet space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

AIR MAIL

iOS

Air Mail is serving up some Pilotwings realness right now on iOS. It’s not just a cheap clone or a terrible faux-port of the popular Nintendo franchise. Chillingo’s history of excellence proves itself again with a title that’s charming, challenging, and meticulously crafted. You’re “Scoop” (you get to pick a boy or girl character), a young pilot freshly inducted into the ranks of the Domeekan Island Flyers. Scoop must deliver packages, explore, and complete other challenges on the cheery archipelago -- at least until the Verikai Sky Fleet comes in and sets up a blockade.

One of my favorite parts of Air Mail is its complete lack of actual dogfighting. Sure, Scoop is part of the war effort, but that doesn’t mean you have to shoot down the bad guys to win. Objectives include supply line sabotage, disarming explosives, and delivering supplies to your own brethren. It’s refreshingly innocent, but not in a naive way. Visually, Air Mail is downright gorgeous, especially on the new iPad, and you’ll find yourself loving Exploration Mode, wherein you fly around in your plane, pick up information, and take in the sights of Domeekan.

Air Mail is an exquisite example of how mobile games can truly entertain and tell a compelling story without losing the heart that great mobile gaming is all about. This is a game all ages and kinds of gamers will enjoy.

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The Naked Gun: I.C.U.P. for iOS devices is now live! Thanks to DNA Interactive and Bad Neighbors, everyone's favorite detective is back. The game combines modern crime show cliches with video game culture to create a fun experience that will have you laughing the entire time. Want proof before you purchase? Check out this trailer.

• NEWS: The Naked Gun Lives On As A Facebook Game

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Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The phone and tablet space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

SLINGSHOT RACING

iOS

There’s a lot to love about Slingshot Racing, easily launching it to the top of the list of games this week. Some of my favorite games on mobile are simple, fun, and addicting racing titles like DrawRace 2,so it’s nice to see a game that not only enters the genre with aplomb, but also has the gameplay and gorgeous visuals to back that bravado up.

What makes Slingshot Racing something special within the genre is the game’s namesake: the slingshot functionality used to whip your racer around corners. You’ll tap the screen to cause little towers to grab hold of your car and sling it around each turn. You have the option of playing Career Mode, but the real fun begins when you find a couple friends and fire up the Multiplayer. Each corner of your iPad can be used as one player’s control, and there’s something really amazing about playing against a friend in person. It’s something online multiplayer can’t really match in terms of experience, and it’s worth the price of admission alone.

Overall, Slingshot Racing is an incredibly good racer with some really cool mechanics in it, and Snowbolt Interactive should be proud of the excellent game they’ve created. This one’s a must-buy, especially if you have an iPad.

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Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The phone and tablet space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

N.O.V.A. 3

iOS

Gameloft’s N.O.V.A. series is one of the best examples of an FPS shooter done right on mobile, and it’s no different with the newest installment in the series. N.O.V.A. 3 keeps all of the touches that make the franchise great and manages to toss some new features into the mix to keep things fresh. You’re still playing as Kal Warden, savior of the human race (on more than one occasion). Warden is helping out a friend located in the ruins of San Fransisco. Unfortunately, upon arrival, Warden finds the alien Volterites laying the place to waste, and must once again fight for his life and the rest of humanity’s.

The story in campaign mode is well-written and voiced, and the environments take full advantage of the new iPad’s Retina Display as well as it’s increased processor speeds. The overall visuals in N.O.V.A. 3 are stunning. In fact, they’re among the best FPS graphics you’ll currently see in mobile. A new (and welcome) feature is the addition of in-game currency based on how well you complete a level. That currency can then be used to purchase upgrades and weapons. It’s an excellent way to increase replay value on the single-player campaign, and if you’re not into perfection, IAP is available as well to buy those items.

Of course, what N.O.V.A. review would be complete without a nod to its most exciting component: multiplayer. With both local and online gameplay, a plethora of game modes (FFA, Team Deathmatch, Freeze Tag, CTF, InstaGib, and Capture the Point), and even tournaments, you’ll be playing N.O.V.A. 3 long after you’ve completed Campaign Mode.

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You did it, gamers: Republique has been funded. The Kickstarted game met its half-million dollar goal right at the wire, and will be coming out for iPhones, iPads and perhaps other platforms at a later date.

The idea is to create "an epic action game designed specifically for touch-based devices."

For more details, check out the video below with Camouflaj's Ryan Payton, where Rob Manuel and Payton dive deep inside the storyline and gameplay mechanics behind Republique.

Rovio has done pretty well for itself with the Angry Birds empire, and now we'll get to see if that magic can be replicated when the mobile dev takes on a new game based on Casey's Contraptions, a mobile title created by Snappy Touch. The Casey rights now belong to Rovio, Gamasutra reports, and the studio's plan is to release its first non-Angry Birds title sometime in summer 2012.

Casey's Contraptions is a physic-based puzzle game in which players manipulate an assortment of random objects to create a Rube Goldberg-style contraption that fulfills some kind of goal. Rovio's Ville Heijari revealed that Casey's Contraptions, which is now removed from the iTunes App Store, is being reworked into Amazing Alex so that it can be reintroduced in "true 'expect the unexpected' Rovio style." The game will initially be available on iOS and Android devices, with additional platforms to be added "rapidly" following the game's release.

Defender Chronicles 2, the sequel to iOS sensation Defender Chronicles, has been announced. It will hit the App store on May 24. The Defender Chronicles series is built on tower defense and RPG elements. Gamers can make heroes to defeat waves of Orcs,  the Covenant cult, and the supernatural Forsaken. Check out this trailer to see for yourself!

 Make sure to check out Defender Chronicles 2 later this month!

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D, the game is returning, in brower form.You can play the classic PC game directly in browser at Bethesda's site, or on the Wolfenstein Facebook page.

Bethesda is also offering Wolfenstein 3D Classic Platinum, on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, for free for a limited time. Download Wolfenstein 3D Classic Platinum from iTunes.

• VIDEO: Sniper Elite 2 "Hitler's Death" Video

Wolfenstein 3D holds up surprisingly well. It's difficult, colorful, huge and surprising, plus, killing Hitler just never gets old, especially when he's apparently a wizard who can cast "fireball" at will.

As an added bonus, John Carmack, the coolest nerd alive, provides a director's commentary track in the video below:

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Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The phone and tablet space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

ESCAPE FROM AGE OF MONSTERS

iPhone | iPad

Jeff Matsuda creates some seriously wicked art in Escape from Age of Monsters. If you’ve never heard of Matsuda, you might have seen his work in The Batman animated series. Now, he’s once again bringing his talent to iOS with Escape from Age of Monsters, an endless runner with incredibly slick visuals and some crazy fun gameplay. The game takes place in the Age of Monsters, where denizens of the darker side of the universe (aliens, zombies, demons, and the like) have taken over. You play as Gizzard, a guy who’s just acquired some pretty epic gloves and a handful of orphans to protect.

Gizzard must strap on the gloves and run for his life while protecting said orphans from the evil creatures in hot pursuit. While they run, walls in either red or blue block their path, and you’ll need to tap the matching left or right glove to punch the wall down and keep moving. As endless runners go, this one’s a bit different: instead of getting one solitary life per run or a “x3” somewhere on the screen, each life is represented by an on-screen person (Gizzard being your final life). Get caught up on a door... and well, little orphan Suzie just got devoured. Mistime a punch, and tiny parentless Mike is now an appetizer. It’s devilish, dark, and freaking awesome.

Unlockables and an undeniably epic rock soundtrack provided by Los Angeles based band The Binges elevate Escape From Age of Monsters to another level. This game flat out bleeds cool.

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Competitive gaming on the go is coming thanks to Major League Gaming, Sony Mobile Communications, and Gameloft's Xperia Mobile Gaming Arena (XMGA). The Arena will let gamers compete for thousands of dollars worth of prizes from just about anywhere. The first game to be featured is Gameloft's own first-person shooter Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation.

“For Gameloft, partnering with strong brands such as the MLG and Sony Mobile Communications to promote a new age of competitive mobile gaming is a very exciting time, “ said Baudouin Corman, vice president of publishing in the Americas at Gameloft. “Given the millions of gamers that have participated in competitions online and via console over the years, there’s a great future for the online multiplayer experience with the Xperia Mobile Gaming Arena.”

Whenever you play Modern Combat 3, your stats will automatically be updated to the leaderboards once you register for the service at Major League Gaming's mobile portal. Currently, gamers are competing to get the most kills by May 20, 2012. $1,000 will be awarded to first place, $500 to second, and $150 for third. As an incentive to get people to compete using Sony's Xperia Play, anyone who wins using one will get an extra $100.

Some people live and breath competitive gaming. Will you be competing in the XMGA, or would you rather watch a live stream of your favorite games on your phone instead? Let us know in the comments section.

Fans are plenty excited about the video game revival of the Shadowrun series in Shadowrun Returns, and they've shown it by stepping up with more than $1.8 million in funding for Harebrained Schemes' Kickstarter initiative. That's a significant amount more than the $400,000 that Harebrained originally sought, a goal that the project managed to achieve in just a single day.

The final total falls at $1,836,447 pledged for Shadowrun Returns by 36,276 backers, and that's just on Kickstarter. The final update for the project notes that the PayPal-centered funding initiative for the game -- estabished to allow those without credit cards to contribute -- stands at more than $50,000. You can still put down money there for what is essentially a pre-order at this point as well.

This is where the hard work begins for Harebrained of course, with the team now having to deliver on a project that fans have placed so much faith in.

According to a recent interview on NPR, the creator of the physics behind Angry Birds, Erin Catto, hasn't received any money from Rovio, the company who's gone on to make over $1.2 billion on the franchise. The fascinating NPR interview with Catto detailed how the father-of-two previously created a free program called Box 2D which millions of programmers used to create games once the smartphone market exploded. Catto released Box 2D for free back in 2006, and since then the program has remained free at Box 2D website.

• NEWS: Angry Birds Space Hits 10 Million Downloads

Rovio went on to use Box 2D, just as thousands of other companies did, to create their game Angry Birds. Angry Birds, a game with a simple objective where gamers have to use a slingshot to fling angry birds at green pigs, was released in 2009 and has gone on to sell over 700 million copies. Gamers of all types have become addicted to Angry Birds at one time or another, and its characters have been made into toys, put on clothing, and just about everything else. There are even rumors that an Angry Birds movie may be on the way.

All Erin Catto has received from the mass success of Angry Birds is a red sweatshirt, and he doesn't even like the color red. "If they would send me a blue one I would wear it!” he said.

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Welcome to G4's Knuckle Up, where we bring you a byte-sized view of our five favorite mobile games every week. The phone and tablet space is filled with incredible games that will keep you busy for minutes, hours, or even days -- we'll let you know what we're playing and why we're playing it. Here are our top five games this week:

GAME OF THE WEEK

BURGER CAT

iOS

Oh, Burger Cat. You roped me in with your simple, adorable premise, and then held me (willingly) hostage with your elegant and fun gameplay. At first, you may write off Burger Cat as too simple. After playing through later levels, however, the game quickly becomes giddily complex, and you’ll retract your original mindset.

The story goes a little something like this: Burger Cat loves burgers (pretty obvious). He loves them so much, he decides to add a special ingredient to them to give them that extra kick. That ingredient is nitro glycerin. KA-BOOM.

You’ll spend your time in Burger Cat utilizing different tools to alter the landscape in each level, and then releasing your feline hero into that landscape after making those changes. The goal is to get him across the map to the delicious burger on the other side, and you get a finite number of pre-picked tools to do it with. Some remove/add squares of land, others change the direction the cat walks in; fortunately, Burger Cat encourages you to get creative with placement, often giving you more than what you need to complete each level and making the game incredibly enjoyable for gamers of all ages.

This is a game that slowly unfolds all kinds of measured, deliberate awesome on you, so take a chance. Plus, the “cat + cheeseburger” formula is a known winner (based on the entire internet).

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New levels for Angry Birds Space are available now. That was quick, eh, Angry Birders? The new Angry Birds Space episode is called "Fry me to the Moon," and it features ten new levels.

Developer Rovio is also including 20 free space eagles on iOS as a thank you to its legions of pig-killing, bird-flinging fans. They're also giving out a free space eagle every day on iOS, so if you play every day, you can pick up your free eagle.

Here's the Angry Birds Space link. Get your levels!

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A Scarface game is coming to the iOS, so pick up your iPhone or iPad and say hello to your little friend, I suppose.

Scarface, from developer Hothead, promises to provide the lavish life of kingpin Tony Montana, but presumably without his violence and cocaine fueled downfall. And it's free. So first you get the app, then you get the power, then you get the women.

"Who hasn't watched the movie Scarface and thought about the fun of being Tony Montana (at least for a little while)?" said Jon Walsh, CEO of Fuse Powered. "Working with Hothead Games and Universal has allowed us to bring one of the most iconic characters and storylines to life in the mobile space."

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