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Tapulous took the App Store by storm with its inaugural Tap Tap Revenge rhythm music gaming title. It followed that up with the no less successful Tap Tap Revenge 2, Tap Tap Dance, and various Tap Tap games branded for individual artists. Tap Tap Revenge 3 (iTunes link) hit the App Store today, bringing with it new features and some unique iPhone 3.0 capabilities.

The official page for the app just went live over at Tapulous’s site. The app is the first in the revenge series not to retail for free — it costs 99 cents, and potentially will result in far more revenue via in-app purchasing.

For those of you worried that Tap Tap Revenge is now all about the Benjamins, fear not, there are still plenty of free tracks available for download, with more planned as future updates. It’s basically the same set-up that existed with TTR2, but without the need to buy special separate themed apps from Coldplay, etc., in order to get that bonus content. Instead, you use in-game “coins” to acquire new songs.

Opening up the app, I found right away that TTR3 was quite different from its predecessors. The first thing I had to do was choose a username and an avatar. The avatar seems to be randomly generated from a stock selection of different parts, so I of course spent far too long randomizing my appearance until I found something somewhat acceptable.

After that, I checked out the store to see what I could spend my hard-won coins on, and was not surprised to find avatar items and clothing among the available purchases. You use coins to buy avatar items, but luckily coins are earned in-game and don’t cost any actual money.

Buying tracks uses the in-app purchasing feature introduced in iPhone OS 3.0, and will prompt you with the amount the item you’ve chosen costs and a dialog that allows you to either buy or cancel the transaction. Tracks come in Packs, each featuring two or more songs. I tried purchasing a Blink-182 track pack for $2.99, and then thought better of it.

The actual rhythm game part of Tap Tap Revenge 3 works just like you remember it, if you played any of the predecessors. Colored orbs travel down three lanes, and must be tapped when they reach the bottom of your iPhone’s screen in order to score points and rack up a high score. Your score affects the number of points you earn, which you can then spend on avatar items.

Song selection in the in-app store is a bit hit or miss, and features a lot of content already available on previous installments, but the game’s only been out for less than a day, so I suspect the library will fill out quite nicely in time. If you liked the previous games, and the added incentive of a growing library featuring top artists and a built-in rewards system appeals to you, 99 cents is well worth the price of admission for TTR3.