It’s another week and I’ve brought you another heaping spoonful of apps. A couple are free and the others are 99 cents, so even if you bought/downloaded them all and only liked 2 or 3, I think you’d still be getting some pretty good entertainment for not a lot of coin.

In related news, I’m super excited at this week’s announcement of Zen Wars which is being published by Liv Games (Legendary Arms). Zen Wars is inspired by Rampart, one of my favorite NES games, so when I watched the trailer I knew that if the game is done right, it will be one of my iPod Touch favorites.

In unrelated news, if you want to have some fun taking pictures with your iOS device, go buy Hipstamatic. It adds filters to your images to give them a cool retro look, and helps hide the fact that my iPod’s camera quality sucks.

Kard Combat

I tried to get into Magic: The Gathering in high school, but apparently I’m not the type to collect cards (collecting useless junk is another matter). When I received a press release for Kard Combat by Hothead Games, I asked for a review code. My primary motivation was curiosity. I doubted a combat card game would be much fun on an iOS device, but I wanted to give it a try. Since the game made it into this week’s App Attack, obviously I was proven wrong.

You can download Kard Combat for free and if you enjoy it, purchase the full game. I’m a fan of the micro-transaction model so I’ll probably purchase the full game. On the easiest setting the game is too easy, but I’m still learning the rules and strategies, so it’s nice to not have the computer obliterate me right off the bat. Even if you’re not a fan of card-based combat games, you might be surprised at the appeal that this app possesses. I’m drawn to most things that can be considered macabre and fanatasy-related, which could be the reason I’m a fan of this game. Give it a try, you might be surprised as well.

Tesla Wars

Tesla Wars is another example of a game that I received information about, but was skeptical of its worth. Come on, do we really need another stick figure anything? I guess we can thank Flash developers for just about killing the stick figure appeal. Late one night I was browsing the iTunes store on my iPod and I saw Tesla Wars. It was free so I downloaded it. All it took was exploding my first stick figure, and I was hooked. There’s something about video game gore and violence that has always appealed to me.

Tesla Wars has simple controls – tap to kill. There are upgrades, special abilities and the usual fancies to give the game variety, but killing stuff is killing stuff, and I love simulated violence. Usually free games have some sort of “if you want more fun spend some money” scheme, but I can’t find one for this game. And while it’s not exactly my favorite mode, the app comes with multiplayer for those so inclined to check it out.