Circus Marcus for the iPhone OS is the first title from Neowiz Entertainment, offering up a small collection of mini-games that make good use of the platform's built-in accelerometer (the device inside that lets the phone know you’re tilting it) and touchscreen controls.  The actual games are rendered in full 3D, a rarity for the platform, and feature a fun artistic style that does help give the package a unique visual flair.  The story has janitor-turned-performer Marcus looking to win the hand of his ladylove, ringmaster Ruby.  He's willing to do anything to help prove his affections, even churning endlessly through a very limited number of circus-related mini-games.

There are five games in all, and each of them manages to feel unique despite their similar big top themes.  Some of the games focus on the accelerometer more so than others, such as hand standing, tight rope walking, and a unique little catching game called Ele-Vator.

In Hand standing, you’ll need to tilt the iPhone to keep Marcus from losing his balance. Tight rope walking is pretty much the same thing, except you’re trying to guide Marcus across a rope at a death-defying height with occasional obstacles getting in your way. You can jump over them by quickly shaking your iPhone in an upward motion, and you get to control Marcus’ speed on the tight rope by tilting the phone forward slightly.

Ele-Vator by far is the strangest game, and most likely will turn lot of people off to this collection. In it, objects like stuffed animals and beach balls will fall from the sky, and Marcus needs to stack them as they hurl towards the ground. The game requires you to tilt the iPhone left and right to add items on top of the stack you’re building.  Sometimes a bomb will fall, causing you to lose a lot of your progress if you happen to catch it. This can quickly become frustrating, as tilting the console doesn’t move Marcus as quickly as it should, and doesn’t really fit well in with the whole circus theme.

The remaining two games, Flying Trapeze and Human Cannon Bowling, both use the iPhone’s touch capabilities instead of tilt, which is cool since it adds some variety to the gameplay that’s been shown thus far.  Cannon Bowling has Marcus climbing into cannon to be shot out at giant bowling pins. You’ll need to aim the cannon with your finger and choose the right amount of power you think you’ll need to get a strike.  Sounds simple enough, and was certainly my favorite of the bunch.

I wish there could have been more to Circus Marcus, as playing these games does grow stale after awhile, and the story mode just cycles the games over and over.  There’s not much going on in the bonus modes either, which simply lets you play Ele-Vator, and the flying trapeze endlessly. Pin-Sanity is probably the only cool bonus feature, which allows up to 9 new layouts for Human Cannon Bowling.  Still, with decent 3D visuals and responsive controls, it can be fun in short spurts, but don’t expect to sink more than an hour of your life into this app before wiping it from your console for good.