[How To is a recurring feature in which we demonstrate techniques designed to improve your game, and make your skill set more than a little bit awesome. This time out, we’ll help you create iPhone ringtones.]

So you’re tired of that really annoying generic ringtone that comes with your iPhone? Do you want to express your love of gaming through your text message notification? It’s not as easy as dragging-and-dropping. Here are the steps to create iPhone ringtones.

I won’t mince words here: Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty (a $4.99 universal iPhone and iPad game) is a mobile Mirror’s Edge with a Marvel Comics skin. Gamers are charged with guiding a sprinting, leaping, sliding, pole-swinging, and wall-running Steve Rogers through a HYDRA stronghold to bash WWII-era baddies. Packing 24 levels, a story by Marvel scribe Christos Cage (who also wrote Captain America: Super Soldier), art by Ron Lim and Christopher Sotomayor, this Disney Mobile game is a fun, lightweight diversion, but the focus on running may turn some away who were expecting a more hand-to-hand and stealth action.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, here: most Android and iPhone games are little diversions you play while waiting to do something much more important, and as such, they’re short affairs. The Amazing Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a relatively large game for a mobile title, and it’s a pretty refreshing play because of that. But alas, that freshness doesn’t last long as the clunky controls and hideous dialogue hinder the experience.

When Capcom announced that one of my favorite fighters–Marvel vs. Capcom 2– was making its way to the iPhone and iPad I was overwhelmed with joy. But the excitement wore off seconds after I launched the app.

Let’s get this out the way early: The iPhone’s touchscreen isn’t conducive for recreating the hardcore fighting game experience. I felt this way while playing Street Fighter IV: Volt Battle Protocol and The King of Fighters-i, but after playing the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 port I appreciate those games a bit more. Trying to play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on the iPhone is just ludicrous and destroys the experience. On paper its a great idea, but Capcom failed in execution. Instead, we’re left with a $2.99 piece of nostalgia that’s found on half a dozen consoles.

Storm Strikers is the follow up to the 2D-X Excellence Award-winning Danmaku Unlimited. Although Storm Strikers shares many features with its predecessor–manic shooting action, dark Tron-like graphics, and challenging gameplay–it serves up a few new tricks. Unfortunately, the game also feel very similar to Danmaku Unlimited in certain areas as well.

Capcom and SNK have churned out stellar fighting games since the halcyon arcade days, with each company pushing the other in a competitive war for quarters. Between the pair, they’ve produced gems such as Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Capcom vs. SNK 2, SNK vs Capcom: The Match of the Millenium, and dozens others.

Flash forward to 2011. Both 2D fighting game giants have released iOS fighters: King of Fighters-i and Street Fighter IV: Volt. Both are incredibly fun and surprisingly deep iPhone games, but only one can take the crown as the Apple fighting game champ. So we’re forcing them into battle with a head-to-head comparison.

CES kicks off this week, and ION is wasting no time in unveiling a pair of gamer friendly products. The company has introduced the iCade Core (the successor to the original iCade), and iCade Mobile. Both look to give gamers an easier way to enjoy the plethora of apps on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Wesley Snipes stars as Julius Styles, an international man of butt-kicking mystery who is here to rid the world of hooligans.

The Street Fighter franchise is the fighting genre’s poster boy, but SNK Playmore’s King of Fighters–a series that launched in 1994–has played a vital role in the genre’s development. King of Fighters may not have garnered Street Fighter’s massive success, but the long-running series has a rabid audience that has followed it long after its departure from the now-defunct Neo Geo platform. Enter the $7.99 The King of Fighters-i, the first KOF designed for the Apple iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad platforms. KOF fans will find much to like here; the iPhone game retains the look, style, and hardcore fighting action of previous editions. The only drawback? An abbreviated roster and (as expected) occasionally troublesome virtual d-pad .

The long-running KOF series comes to the iPhone and iPod touch.