Apple has today announced that the App Store has surpassed a whopping 40 billion downloads, with almost 20 million seen in 2012 alone. A record-breaking December, helped by another successful Christmas, boosted this year’s figures, with more than two billion downloads during the month.

Much as I love Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series of tongue-in-cheek horror films, and much as I have tried to emulate my virtues after that of its protagonist Deadite slayer Ash Williams, I have never found any of the myriad efforts to translate Army of Darkness‘ appeal to the video game form to be worth anything besides a derisive snort.

So I feel a little foolish getting so excited by word coming from Backflip Studios that they will be releasing a game based on Army of Darkness to the App Store early in 2011.

There’s almost no details so far, except that it will be a tower defense game, which is a surprising but remarkably appropriate choice, and you can expect several hours of Bruce Campbell’s snarling, macho and downright hysterical catch phrases as you blow hole after hole through the medieval dead with your trusty boomstick. Don’t bone this up, Backflip!

Paper Toss for iPhone is a brilliant pick-up-and-play game that is guaranteed to kill some time when you’re waiting for your train, when your boss is out of the office, or when you’re waiting for your little ones to give up the TV. If you’re one of the 21,000,000 paper tossers out there, you’ll be pleased to know the game is now available on the iPad, including a new level and improved visuals for the larger screen. But is it worth that $2.99 price tag?