I've heard of iPhone apps for people, places, television shows and movies - so why not add games into the mix? This can be done in either a good way or a bad way. I tend to think most iPhone apps of this variety are just lame attempts at advertising their show or some famous person to the more tech-savvy crowd. Most of them are crap. I can't really say that about this Magna Carta 2 app that was released by Softmax - the game's developer - last week.

Now, it can be a bit deceiving, as the app icon and description say "guide" on it, but it's more like a lite version of the paper manual inside the game case. Don't get me wrong, it would be awesome if they offered you a free iPhone strategy guide for the whole game, but that is not what this is. It is a "guide" to the characters and back-story of the game, as told through images. It also gives you some basic info about the game (ESRB rating, release date, genre, system, etc.). Truth be told, there isn't a whole lot of content here, even for an app just describing the characters and what the game is about.

What I enjoyed about it is all the images and visual goodies they added.  You have your standard screenshots and in-game model images.  In addition to that, they throw in concept art galore - both of the characters and of locations within the game.  There's also cute-ified art of all the characters when you want a warm, fuzzy feeling.  Finally, they give you a nice selection of iPhone wallpaper.  What is also nice is that every single image in the app can be saved to your iPhone's camera roll for later viewing, manipulating or sharing.  (This would also allow you to use pictures that aren't really formatted as wallpaper for that purpose.)

All in all, it's a nifty little app for fans of the game to hang on to, especially with all the artwork available on it.  I could pass on the videos and story info, as that stuff can be found easily anywhere.  Still, it is something.  If you want to check it out, it's available for free on iTunes [iTunes link].  I've also included a few screens I took of the app below.  What do you guys think?  Do you like these type of apps for games or would you rather just skip them?