Archive for the ‘3G’ tag
iPhone Gaming: Looking Back on 2009 and Forward to 2010
With the year coming to a close, I feel confident in saying with as much authority as I can muster that 2009 has been an amazing year. Soon we will be posting the results of weeks of deliberation on what we feel were the best games, a holiday buyer's guide for people who opened an iPod touch or iPhone this Christmas, and other year-end stories highlighting the various games we feel are the "must-haves" of 2009– But it hardly seems right to summarize the year in a few simple lists of game titles, brief synopses and links to reviews when so many remarkable games were created and events transpired that were still highly noteworthy or influential but fall outside of the rigid boundaries of "best of" listings.
When the App Store first launched on July 10th, 2008, very few people, myself included, realized the full potential of a reasonably open platform with a $99 entry fee that allowed developers building games in their bedrooms to be on equal footing with industry giants. The success of the pioneers of the App Store created a gold rush of talent, with new eager developers hoping to see even a fraction of the success of the stories that motivated their migration to the platform. 2009 was filled with even more inspirational tales of developers quitting their day jobs and building full-fledged businesses off of the App Store.
2009 also marked the year that the indie developer dreams of Imangi Studios, Bolt Creative, InMotion Software, Tiger Style Games, and many others were fully realized with titles created out of basements and on kitchen tables without a single cent of outside financing that were able to compete with the likes of EA, Activision, Sega, Namco, and other giants of the gaming industry. Everything they created was their own, a feat nearly impossible on any other platform.
Before 2009, no iPhone gamers cared about or likely even knew the name Tim Langdell, a man who has now become infamous amongst the community for relentlessly disputing ancient trademarks and consistently keeping Mobigame's EDGE off the App Store. We were impressed by the game when we first posted about it on January 4th, before anyone even had a clue of the legal battles to come. Since its was taken down, EDGE has briefly appeared for download several times throughout the year, but even as 2009 is coming to a close the fate of this game still is unclear.
Five days following the release of EDGE, Pocket God [99¢] made its debut on the App Store. At the time, not even Bolt Creative realized the cult following that the game would soon have. We didn't even post about it until months later, as in its earliest form Pocket God barely resembled what you would call a game– But the Pocket God phenomenon was growing too large to even attempt to ignore. Since then the game has seen 29 episodes, each representing a substantial content update and according to the , Pocket God has over 1.6 million worldwide fans– A number easily confirmed by the blitz of forum members swarming each and every Pocket God thread posted on our forums along with countless other Pocket God fan-made spinoff sites.
February was an even bigger month than January for iPhone games, with Rogue Touch's [99¢] release and its continued dominance throughout the year with the developer consistently implementing community feedback, solidifying its position as the best implementation of Rogue on the platform. iDracula [99¢ / Free] was also released, and was the first dual-stick shooter to rise to the #1 position on the overall paid app sales chart– Its success no doubt inspiring countless other developers to throw their hats in to the dual-stick shooter ring.
In a sea of tower defense games, February also saw geoDefense [$1.99 / Free], a game that challenged fans of the genre with its brutal difficulty level which was designed from the ground up to never create a situation where the player is able to sit back and watch as waves of creeps are slaughtered by their defenses. Since then, geoDefense Swarm [$1.99] appeared on the App Store, after much anticipation from the fan base of the original game, which had grown so hardcore that they even challenged developer David Whatley to post the source code controlling one of the game's towers to verify its functionality.
On March 5th, Flight Control [99¢] hit the App Store with a bang, in essence creating the line drawing chaos management genre which was spawned an army of games with similar gameplay elements or control mechanics. Games like Harbor Master [99¢ / Free] were among the first in expanding on the Flight Control formula, but none of the spinoffs even saw a fraction of the success of Flight Control, a game which has held a firm position near the top of the paid apps listing since its release with a fan following of celebrities such as .
Doodle Jump [99¢] was also released in March, a simple tilting game which has since seen several updates and to this day still hasn't left the second screen of my iPhone 3G, along with being among the very first batch of essential apps and games that were synced to my iPhone 3GS shortly after unboxing it on the day of its release. Doodle Jump has become the gold standard that most simple games are compared to on TouchArcade, and it seems impossible for us to record a podcast without mentioning it at least once.
One of the most memorable games for me of April (aside from Ow My Balls! [99¢]) was Hysteria Project [$1.99], a game that combined live action footage with simple gameplay elements reminiscent of Sega CD or LaserDisc full motion video games. Ultimately the game fell flat due to a short playtime and nearly non-existent replay value, but I still have to admire the amount of talent, planning, and production that went in to creating the many video clips and impressive horror/thriller atmosphere. Hysteria Project seems to be abandoned now with updates released only addressing existing bugs and iTunes reviews flooded by users requesting additional content. Regardless, if you're a fan of games like Dragon's Lair [$4.99], you will likely appreciate the direction Bulkypix attempted to go with Hysteria Project.
May brought Manomio's port of Flashback [$1.99 / 99¢], a game which curiously enough was only an interpreter of the original game files based on the REminiscence engine by Gregory Montoir. On the first launch of the game it downloaded 3MB of the original DOS data files in order to play the game. No one knew it at the time, but this mechanism foreshadowed the dramatic release and re-release saga of their Commodore 64 Emulator [$2.99], an app which sparked countless debates over the merits of Apple's approval process as its fate on the App Store slowly unfolded.
Sega's Sonic The Hedgehog [$5.99] was also released around this time, and it didn't take long for clever members of the community to pick the game apart and discover that it was little more than Sega's own emulator– And with a minimal amount of tweaking could be made to play any Genesis ROM file. Emulation on the iPhone was punctuated in late December with the release of Nescaline, a NES emulator based on NES v3 available on Cydia. Only available for a few short hours, retro fans willing to cough up $6.99 during this time are now among a small group of gamers capable of running any NES game on their device without jailbreaking.
While we were at WWDC, the talk of the town seemed to be InMotion Software's I Dig It [App Store], an amazing game that came completely out of left field and seemed to captivate anyone who got passed an iPhone with it installed during the event. After each night of the conference when our own Blake Patterson insisted on taking us to his favorite bar in San Francisco, , I'd run my battery completely out searching for diggins while drinking gin and tonics. I Dig It eventually hit #1 on the iTunes sales charts, and in the wake of its success, InMotion Software released I Dig It Expeditions [99¢ / Free]– A sequel and vast improvement on the original.
After a tease at the WWDC Launch Party that was co-hosted by TouchArcade and MacHeist, Doom Resurrection [$1.99] was available for download. Launched at the premium price of $9.99, Doom Resurrection utilized the same assets as Doom 3, and while there were many 3D games available on the App Store prior to its release, Doom Resurrection was likely the first title that truly opened the eyes of iPhone gamers allowing them to see the true graphical potential of the platform.
SGN's F.A.S.T. [Free] also went live on the App Store in late June, and was among the first games for the iPhone to offer seamless realtime action oriented multiplayer. Following its release at $9.99, F.A.S.T. has slowly had its price reduced and is now free and funded by in-game downloadable content– A feature available to developers following the release of the iPhone 3.0 OS on June 17th.
The iPhone 3GS hit the street on June 19th, packing a faster processor, more storage, a compass, and most important to gamers: OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities. It would still be some time before this new functionality would realized by developers, and 2009 is coming to a close without the compass being used for anything more than gimmicky augmented reality tech demo games and with developers only barely scratching the surface of OpenGL ES 2.0– With a select few games even taking advantage of the additional shaders and other graphical effects available on the 3GS and later released 3rd generation iPod touch.
The entire month of July was overshadowed by the release of Enviro-Bear 2010 [99¢] an experience which polarized gamers in to two camps: Those who thought Enviro-Bear 2010 was the worst game that they ever played and couldn't understand why we would post about it, and those who agreed with me that it was the Citizen Kane of iPhone games. Featuring the most realistic simulation of a bear driving a car available on the platform, Enviro-Bear 2010 is still talked about on our forums and referenced in a few other games, most notably the recent Minigore [$1.99] update.
Also first available in July, Newtoy's Words With Friends [$1.99 / Free] joined Chess With Friends [$2.99 / Free] in providing the iPhone equivalent of correspondence gaming to the games of Chess and not-quite-Scrabble. CEO Paul Bettner later revealed some in mid-September: the Newtoy games had 50,000 active players daily. While Pinch Media reported the average iPhone app user spent less than 5 minutes on an app per day, Chess With Friends and Words With Friends players spent an average time of 1.5 hours playing each day.
The most notable game to come out of August was by far Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [$2.99]. Released without a single preview, Spider instantly captivated our entire community. The allure of such a mysterious yet high quality game was irresistible as Bryce Manor itself held a mystery which the player could either follow their human curiosity choose to explore the story of the game, or simply enjoy the game as a spider catching bugs and completely ignore it. This was just many of the remarkably ingenious design decisions found in Spider, and the game's entire design process perfectly embodied the indie development spirit of the platform.
Beating EA to the punch by an entire month, Gameloft's NFL 2010 [$2.99 / Free] was the first fully licensed football game available on the iPhone which was soon followed by Madden NFL 10 [$5.99], a game we got an early preview of at the Penny-Arcade Expo in Seattle. Which is the better football game was hotly debated among sports fans on our forums, with both games competing in feature wars involving multiplayer, complete NFL rosters, stat tracking, and other things only hardcore sports fans cared about. Regardless, gaming franchise staples like Madden only further legitimized the iPhone as a gaming platform.
At the end of September, Hi, How Are you [99¢ / Free] hit the App Store, a game based on the life, art, and music of Daniel Johnston. When I first played the game, I had no clue who Daniel Johnston was, or why this game was so amazingly strange. All I knew was that it had a really cool cell shaded art style, and in researching the game I became aware of everything that was Daniel Johnston. , this completely transformed the game for me. Much like the work of Daniel Johnson, Hi, How Are You is completely off the wall, and likely one of the most under-appreciated games on the App Store. In the few emails I sent back and forth with the developer, it seemed this realization was not at all uncommon and the game's single fault is that it may just simply be too strange.
In October, Canabalt [$2.99] was released, the iPhone port of a flash game playable online for free. Our community was wholly divided amongst players who were absolutely in love with Canabalt, and others who still leave comments on front page stories and post threads in our forums upset both with the positive reception it received and its $2.99 price point. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, it is a remarkable feat to be among among the few iPhone games that are not only noticed, but also talked about for months following their release. Canabalt was later updated with a few new obstacles and online leaderboards– Clearly quantifying exactly how bad I am at the game compared to the rest of the world.
Following Canabalt came another game with similar pixelated retro graphics: Hook Champ [$2.99 / Free]. Taking a similar swinging mechanic made popular by other games and introducing RPG elements in an equipment shop where virtually everything about your character can be upgraded, Hook Champ was an instant classic. Featuring among the best and most seamless integration of online leaderboards I've seen, Hook Champ provides a silly amount of replay value as each run through a level is timed, uploaded and compared to everyone else's performance.
October also saw what seemed to be one of the most substantial announcements from Apple since the unveiling of 3GS hardware: Changes to the downloadable content system on the App Store allowing free apps to have in-app purchasing. Previously, DLC was only available to developers who sold their apps, with the intention that free apps would always be free. Aside from substantially changing the dynamic of the top 100 lists, we also speculated that lite versions could be a thing of the past as developers migrated to free demo apps which were unlocked to the full version via an in-game microtransaction. Very few games ever actually implemented this purchase model, largely in part because appearing on the top 100 free list requires exponentially more downloads than what is required to chart on the top 100 paid listings.
What this new DLC change did usher in was games like ngmoco's Eliminate [Free], a free to play game with optional in-game purchases to buy energy, a sort of virtual currency used inside of the game. Touch Pets Dogs [Free] also utilizes a similar model, as do several of the Miraphonic Epic Wars games.
In November, Activision surprised us all with the release of Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [$9.99], the cooperative online multiplayer enabled port of the zombie-slaying game mode from Call of Duty: World at War for home consoles– Leaving iPhone gamers wondering what could possibly come next out of the industry giant.
Wheeler's Treasure [$1.99] also hit the App Store, following a thread with beta testers absolutely raving about the game. Featuring flick controls, and a really strange game premise where you're chasing a wheel down a hill, Wheeler's Treasure is yet another example of an extremely high quality game that really could only exist on the iPhone. The developer has already implemented a few new power-ups in game based on (and named after) forum members who provided feedback, and Wheeler's Treasure joins Hook Champ as another game that has fabulously seamless online scoring, marked by headstones that appear in game based on the distance other players travelled before their wheel was destroyed.
November and December were met with a blitz of games from Gameloft, who at the start of the year went from releasing a few mediocre games to the nearly becoming undisputed king of iPhone game production. Aside from the remarkably complete port of the PlayStation/PC classic Driver [$6.99], Gameloft delivered several other games including N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [$6.99], a Sci-Fi first person shooter with four player online multiplayer and among the best graphics of any iPhone game released this year.
December also saw several fantastic classic games, starting off with Sword of Fargoal [$4.99], which is by far the most approachable roguelike and one of the best examples of a perfectly remade retro game. The previously released Space Ace [$4.99] was also joined by two other LaserDisc arcade classics: Cobra Command [$2.99] and Dragon's Lair [$4.99].
With 122,660 available apps on the App Store as of today, even this seemingly comprehensive listing of major events and releases barely even begins to scratch the surface. One could spend weeks analyzing the App Store notating the trends in sales, releases, genres, and borrowed/modified gameplay mechanics. The fact that this is even possible is amazing by itself, and when you consider that the App Store is only a year and a half old, it's hard to imagine what the year-end wrap-up of 2010 will include.
Notable things on the horizon include the Unreal Engine 3 coming to the iPhone, potentially unlocking countless ports of existing projects developed for the Unreal Engine as well as the unimaginable unannounced games from the industry leaders of the App Store. Looking at what Gameloft, ngmoco, Illusion Labs, and others have produced this year alone, it's impossible to even guess what they will have accomplished next year.
Apple seems to be updating the iPhone and iPod touch hardware on a yearly basis, and rumors are already rolling in on potential inclusions for next year's model. With the Nvidia Tegra-based Zune HD and numerous Android devices either released or due to be released soon, the iPhone's advantage currently lies in the power of its software rather than its hardware– A fantastic position to be in, especially as more apps are submitted to the iTunes App Store on a daily basis than the total number of apps available in the entire Android Marketplace. Not to mention you barely need two hands to count the number of games available for the Zune HD.
, the legendary Apple tablet may also run a shared OS to the iPhone, and run the same games and apps available on the platform. If this turns out to be true, the gaming implications could be massive as a large problem with iPhone games is often how much of the screen is obscured by controls. It's still much too early to even begin to speculate what the future of the Apple tablet will hold, and you can drive yourself crazy attempting to piece together the opinions of industry insiders and analysts.
In regards to TouchArcade, we've grown substantially over 2009. At the beginning of the year Blake and Arnold were holding down the fort, I've since joined the team full time, and we've even acquired some new writers recently who are producing some fantastic reviews. At the various conventions and meetings we've attended throughout the year we've made some great friends, heard some amazing stories, and scored a lot of great previews. We've grown to just under 9 million page views a month, and since we started recording our podcast we've maintained a position in the top ten video game podcasts on iTunes. We even have some great things to come for TouchArcade, both in improving existing features of the site as well as a few top secret projects and partnerships in the works which will be revealed soon.
Our readers and excellent community are directly responsible for our success, and we'd like to thank you for your continued support. From everyone at TouchArcade, have a safe and happy holidays.
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Unreal Engine 3 Running on 3rd Gen iPod touch & iPhone 3GS
at an impressive Unreal Engine 3 tech demo running on a 3rd generation iPod touch last week, and with plans to make this engine available to existing licensees at some point in the future, Epic could drastically change the landscape of 3D games on the platform.
Unreal Engine 3 is what powers games like Bioshock, Gears of War, Borderlands, and obviously Unreal Tournament 3 among others. A mobile version of their game engine will make it easy for developers who rely on this technology in the PC/console space to compete on the App Store. The game engine only runs on 3rd generation hardware and obviously future iPod touch and iPhone devices that will also likely be capable of OpenGL ES 2.0.
Here is a brief video showing the performance of the engine in an Unreal Tournament map:
It's unclear exactly when this will be released in to the wild for existing Unreal Engine 3 licensees to start experimenting with, but apparently we will be seeing the engine running on another platform at CES which takes place in Las Vegas from the 7th to the 10th of January.
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NES Emulator ‘Nescaline’ Released on the App Store… [Update: Gone!]
Emulation has long been the forbidden fruit that has lured many iPhone gamers in to jailbreaking. None of the emulators on Cydia that I've tried have been that impressive, providing gameplay experiences that range from poor to mediocre. But for some people (myself included to an extent), being able to just barely play The Legend of Zelda is good enough.
Nescaline [] was released on to the App Store this evening by Jonathan Zdziarski, creator of available on Cydia. Nescaline comes with a basic load out of free games, but to play the games you actually want to play you will need to point the emulator to a .nes ROM file URL. It then downloads the ROM in to the emulator, and you can play it whenever you want.
Multitouch on-screen controls make up the D-Pad and controller buttons, and as you probably could guess, the controls aren't that great. They work, but don't expect to be making your way through Battletoads or any other game that requires fast reactions or the precise controls that come from a physical controller.
When you rotate the orientation of your phone the emulator flips from portrait to landscape, which seems to make controlling games much easier. The performance of the emulated games I've tried ranged from decent to slightly laggy on my 3GS, with some odd bugs such as musical glitches in Zelda and the title screen not displaying correctly in Super Mario Bros.
If you've been looking for a basic NES emulator for the iPhone, but haven't wanted to jailbreak, now is your chance– It's hard to say how long Nescaline will remain on the App Store, especially considering Apple's stance on emulators in the past, its questionable icon, and Nescaline's ability to both download and execute third party code that hasn't been approved by Apple.
Update: And just as fast as Nescaline appeared it was removed from the App Store. If you were lucky enough to grab it while it was available, be sure to back up the .ipa file as you won't be able to download it again until it reappears on the App Store.
App Store Link:
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‘N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance’ – Deadspace Halo Prime
Few games have generated the amount of hype that Gameloft's N.O.V.A. – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance [] has, and even fewer have managed to live up to that same hype. NOVA is one of those rare instances where a upcoming game is everything we wanted and more. It's not perfect, but there aren't many games to even compare it to on the platform. NOVA feels like a complete video game experience, something which is quite rare indeed on the landscape of bite sized games that make up the App Store.
In Nova you play as Karl Wardin, an ex-space marine who has been reactivated to investigate some strange alien activity in a futuristic setting where the Earth has depleted its resources and no longer can sustain life, forcing humanity to live on nearby orbiting colonies. Admittedly, the plot isn't anything to write home about and the voice acting ranges from passable to downright cringe-worthy at times– Especially whenever Karl himself speaks. Thankfully, the gameplay itself more than makes up for these shortfalls.
The first series of levels will leave you wandering around on a space ship while you're guided by various characters communicating over the radio. An arrow guides you from objective to objective, and gameplay amounts to simply following this arrow, killing anything that moves, and flipping switches to activate or unlock different objects and areas. Deadspace fans will feel right at home when the game asks you to traverse the hull of the space ship, even going as far as to mention enabling your magnetic boots. What do you do while you're outside the ship? Run from pressurized area to pressurized area while avoiding incoming asteroids of course. (If you haven't played Deadspace, you do exactly this several times throughout the game– The hull is even laid out similarly.)
Eventually after fixing a few different parts of the ship and killing oodles of aliens, you will make your way to the bridge to initiate the self destruct sequence and escape back to your ship. You then fly down to a planet with beautifully rendered lush forests which also happens to be infested by these same (although slightly different colored) aliens. The rest of the game continues in a similar fashion, with different characters telling you where to go and what to do across 13 different levels that take place in five distinctly different environments.
The run and gun action is broken up by mini games, a level where you man the turrent on a warthog-like truck from Halo, and even a couple boss fights. Scattered throughout the levels are locked crates which must be opened by playing a brief mini game where you move different objects around on a grid to solve a puzzle where you're directing a laser beam from its source to the target. None of these are particularly difficult, and depending on how you feel about mini games you will either find these to be enjoyable distractions or just too annoying to bother with. Thankfully, it seems like there is enough ammo dropped by enemies and laying on the ground that the crates are optional but you will be forced to solve a few of these puzzles throughout the game as you "hack" things to progress.
Similar to Halo, your life is measured by a shield meter at the top of the screen which depletes when you take damage and recharges slowly afterwards. Your shield gauge also serves as your oxygen supply when you're in space, and your super abilities also take off a chunk of your shield's power. Super abilities? Oh yes, straight out of Metroid Prime you will slowly gain new abilities such as the ability to freeze enemies, shoot a charged up energy beam, and even run faster with speed boots.
If you've played Modern Combat: Sandstorm [ / ], the controls in NOVA will be instantly familiar to you. If not, the game uses a virtual joystick on the left side of the screen for movement, and moving your thumb around the right side of the screen changes your view around. Different buttons frame the screen that do things like fire your weapon, toss a grenade, change weapons, reload, etc. There are two other included control schemes, one where the screen is split in half and moving your left thumb anywhere controls your movement while your right controls your view (essentially just removing the virtual joystick) and another with two virtual joysticks where you tap the screen to fire. I've found the default controls to be fine, although I did spend some time fiddling with the sensitivity.
Another nice feature is the ability to move all of the elements of the game's UI around. I've moved the reload button closer to the fire button because I'm a compulsive reloader in first person shooters, but you can customize it however you want. (Although currently this option only seems available by adjusting your controls mid-game, and not from the main menu.) Strangely enough, even though it seems that Gameloft has put a great deal of thought in to different control options and customizations, the ability to invert the Y-axis of the camera control is notably absent. What will leave you scratching your head even more regarding the lack of invert look is that Modern Combat: Sandstorm, a game which shares a similar engine to NOVA includes Y-axis inversion. You can however flip the screen orientation, something that should make iPod touch users happy.
The performance of the game is phenomenal on the iPhone 3GS with fast load times, high frame rates, and everything else you could ask for in a first person shooter. Meanwhile, reader reports all the way down to the have been said to be smooth. Even while playing online in NOVA's four player deathmatch mode, which surprisingly enough seems to be working just fine for everyone, a nice change of pace from Gameloft's recently released Modern Combat: Sandstorm multiplayer update.
Playing online requires both WiFi and a Gameloft Live account. Registering for Gameloft Live is easy, and once you're online you will have the option to play deathmatch or look at the worldwide leaderboards of players with the most points and kills. When creating a deathmatch game, available options include choosing one of the five maps, as well as enabling or disabling weapon stay and aim assist. Games can be set with a time limit or a frag limit, and both can be set to none to play for as long as you'd like.
When joining a game, you're thrown in to a lobby which lists available games that have open slots for you to join. Those of you waiting for an Eliminate "killer" will be disappointed to discover that currently there doesn't seem to be any random matchmaking, or the ability to have friends-only private matches. All you can do is create a game and hope that three of your friends join it before other people do.
Despite its limitations, online multiplayer (as well as local bluetooth/WiFi multiplayer) is a lot of fun and performs surprisingly well. I haven't come across any lag or connection issues, and so far it just works– Although the true test of NOVA multiplayer will be how well it holds up once players start getting good at the game and scrutinizing the weapon balance. It's too early to say how large the online community will get and what kind of staying power NOVA's online presence will have, but it seems quite enjoyable right now.
If you're a fan of first person shooters, or any of the previously mentioned console classics that NOVA is obviously inspired by, then you too will also likely really enjoy NOVA. It's one of the most ambitious iPhone games I've played so far, and despite the questionable originality of the game I've really got to hand it to Gameloft for creating such an amazing iPhone experience.
App Store Link:
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SGN Releases ‘Skies of Glory’ – Free with Downloadable Content
SGN has released their latest aerial combat game Skies of Glory. The follow-up to their popular F.A.S.T. game takes on a World War II theme and adopts a "freemium" business model. The game itself is free to download and play, but offers additional content through in-app purchases. Game features include:
- Multiple skirmish modes, campaigns and tons of training missions with more to come
- Engage with opponents from around the world in 8-player combat over the internet via 3G and WiFi
- Fly with friends over any local network for up to 8-player combat
- Buy more planes for your hanger to maintain a competitive edge over your opponents
Give it a try for free. Feedback and impressions are being .
App Store Link:
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‘Ridge Racer Accelerated’ – Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidge Racer!
It doesn't seem that long ago that I was completely blown away by Ridge Racer on the original PlayStation (which actually was a port itself) along with most of the gaming press at the time. Nearly 15 years later and here we are playing a comparable game on our phones. Namco's recently released Ridge Racer Accelerated [] provides a lot of the same arcade racing feel as the rest of the game series, but similar to Ace Combat Xi or Pac-Man Championship Edition, the game has launched with part of the total content– the rest either requiring in-game microtransactions or apparently coming via future updates.
Like most racing games, steering is controlled by tilting and other functions like braking or changing gears with a manual transmission are linked to on-screen buttons. Auto-acceleration is configurable in the options and defaults to off. The controls work well enough, but it seems like the tilt steering is a little touchy, even after fiddling with the sensitivity in the options. It wasn't anything game breaking, just noticeably less smooth compared to other racing games on the platform.
The arcade driving style will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played a Ridge Racer game before, but may seem strange to newcomers to the franchise as performing well in races requires a great deal of drifting around corners. Drifting is easy to initiate, all you have to do it steer in to a turn, let off the gas, and press it again and your car will be going sideways. Learning to control your drifts instead of just spinning out takes quite a bit of finesse and a lot of trial and error until you get a feel for how much to turn in to them.
The graphics of the game pale in comparison to other racing games available on the iPhone– Especially when it comes to the shockingly low complexity car models. You would think these comparatively low levels of detail would be part of a trade-off for an insanely high framerate, but Ridge Racer Accelerated's iTunes description mentions that the iPhone 3GS is the "recommended" platform with 3G optimizations "coming soon". Except the game doesn't even perform particularly well on the 3GS, and forum members are reporting the game is flat out unplayable on older devices. (Something we haven't entirely been able to replicate in our testing.)
For reference, here is me racing poorly on an iPhone 3GS:
Much like other recent Namco games, Ridge Racer Accelerated is a veritable DLC piñata. Initially coming loaded with only two tracks (or four if you count driving the opposite direction on those same tracks) and 18 different Class 1 and Class 2 vehicles are available (6 unlocked, 12 unlockable). 6 (3 + 3 in opposite direction) additional tracks are available for $2.99 and 9 Class 5 vehicles available for $1.99.
Early reactions have been on the game. Basically, it seems if you can get past the disappointing performance, long time Ridge Racer fans can still have fun with the drift-heavy racing style the game offers. The ultimate goal of each level is really to beat your previous lap times across the tracks and cars included. There's no career mode or global high scores offered. Ridge Racer offers Arcade, Duel and Survival modes using the same tracks and cars.
Further can be found on our forums.
App Store Link:
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A Closer Look at ‘James Cameron’s Avatar’
Gameloft's Avatar was just released last night, and the early adopter response in our forums has been . Avatar is an action adventure game based in the Avatar movie universe.
The game tells the tale of the events leading up to the movie as a sort of prequel to the film itself. Gameloft apparently had complete access to all of the assets behind the movie, as well as recording some original voicework by the cast for use within the game. Avatar appears to use an advanced version of the engine used in Hero of Sparta but with improved visuals and 3GS specific enhancements.
Avatar plays much like a 3D platformer throughout much of its course, but also manages to mix in other play elements. Platform jumping, swinging, climbing and basic fighting are represented throughout the early levels to a much greater degree than Hero of Sparta. Controls include a virtual joystick with on-screen buttons for attack, jump and special attack. Fighting, itself, remains rather shallow and is a matter of rapid fire attacking while maneuvering around enemies (at least on medium difficulty).
Later areas of the game offer a more open world in which you explore while performing quests for villagers, and even a segment where you are playing the back of a banshee avoiding obstacles and taking out enemies. Both these elements are shown in the second video below.
Total playtime is estimated at up to 7 and a half hours across 15 different chapters which is a sizable amount of play time for an iPhone game. One of our writers did run into some troubles with characters getting stuck in parts of the environment requiring a restart as well as some other bugs — though as far as we can tell these issues don't seem widespread. There are moments where you feel like the camera view or controls aren't cooperating properly, resulting in difficulties during the platforming portion. Generous checkpoints, however, prevent this from becoming a major issue.
While each of the individual gameplay elements isn't particularly groundbreaking, Avatar's major achievement is the sense of immersion and scale that Gameloft has managed to create in an iPhone game. Movie tie-in or not, this seems to be one of the most ambitious iPhone games to date.
App Store Link:
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‘Snow Moto Racing’ First Impressions
Resolution Interactive already has had players racing across the water in Aqua Moto Racing [ / ] and the dirt in Dirt Moto Racing [ / ]. It seems like the natural progression of racing environments would have to include some kind of arctic racing, which precisely where their newest game, Snow Moto Racing [] comes in.
Featuring 6 tracks, bluetooth multiplayer, unlockable achievements, and strangely enough a file size that is small enough to download over 3G. It shares all the same tilt controls as the previous games, and seems to use a similar engine as the game plays very similar to the other two games in the Moto Racing series short of being on a snowmobile instead of a Jet Ski or an ATV.
The physics in the game can be a little weird at times, with your snowmobile just bouncing off things you run in to instead of crashing, but other than that it's an enjoyable racing game with a price that can't be beat. (Not to mention getting loads of air and pulling of tricks is just as fun on a snowmobile as it is on a ATV or Jet Ski.) While Snow Moto Racing doesn't have a lite version, you can try out the free versions of either Aqua Moto or Dirt Moto to get a good idea of how these games perform and control.
App Store Link:
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A Case of the Mondays: Game Updates, Freebies and Sales
In what is likely the calm before the storm of an onslaught of pre-holiday iPhone releases, here are a few games that were recently updated or put on sale (along with a few freebies) that are worth a look:
– The recent episode 3 update that we previewed last week has finally arrived, bringing several new playable characters in to the mix as well two characters that are unlocked via a 99¢ in-app purchase. A grenade launcher, upgradeable weapons, and a day/night cycle were added as well– And of course, Minigore fans are already going crazy in the Minigore thread.
– IUGO's best-selling physics-based demolition puzzle game was updated with 20 new levels (10 of those sporting a holiday theme) as well as a bunch of other tweaks and improvements like saving the locations of your bombs between attempts, replays, and decreased load times.
Video by
– The lite version of Bryan Mitchel''s wildly popular Geared [] received an update recently doubling the amount of content in the free version of the game. If you haven't tried out this fantastic gear alignment puzzler, you have 16 levels waiting for you. If you need any more reason to try the lite version, take a look at our review.
– The enhanced version version of the original Dark Raider [ / ] is now free for a limited time. This dual stick shooter adventure game features all kinds of fancy lighting effects and bump mapping and serves as a decent little tech demo for what the platform is capable of in those areas. This version of the game only will work on the iPhone 3GS and 3rd generation iPod touch– Sorry previous-generation device owners.
– Adult Swim recently released what amounts to a holiday re-skin of their silly surgery game, Amateur Surgeon [ / ]. Five levels are included where you will use Christmas-themed instruments to patch up elves, yetis, and even Santa himself. If you like the Christmas Edition, I recommend giving the full Amateur Surgeon a try for even more of the same wacky gameplay.
– The revealed Polyhedra, a relaxing gravity-powered puzzler, as the free game today. Different levels provide different shapes to work with, and to complete a level 66% of the screen must be filled with those shapes, and you only have a limited number of shapes that can be used on each level. Unique, and totally worth a download especially while it's free.
(Originally $1.99) – Today's entry in EA's holiday sale series, Mass Effect Galaxy is somewhat disappointing with tilt to move mechanics, a combat system that doesn't make sense, and extremely long-winded dialog segments. But, if you're a fan of the Mass Effect universe, Galaxy might be worth picking up just to take in the small bit of Mass Effect lore inside of this game.
(Originally $1.99) – Yet another physics based puzzle game, Pocketball asks you to navigate colored balls in to their respective bins using ropes that you connect to pegs on the game board. This is one of my favorite puzzle games that has been released lately, we enjoyed it in our review and there's even a to try.
(Originally $4.99) – Last but certainly not least is Revolutionary Concepts' fantastic port of Cobra Command, a laserdisc arcade game of the 1980's. It was hard to recommend to people who weren't retro fanatics, but at 99¢, Cobra Command is a game anyone who even had their interest remotely piqued by the above video should snag. If you need something else to push you over the edge, check out our review.
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‘Modern Combat’ Online Multiplayer Update Now Live
Gameloft has released the promised online multiplayer update for their first person shooter Modern Combat: Sandstorm. Modern Combat was perhaps the first successfully executed first person shooter for the iPhone, so the addition of online multiplayer has been a much anticipated feature.
With the update having just gone live, it's really too early to tell much. Obviously, if you own Modern Combat already, go ahead and download the free update and give it a try yourself. Here are a series of screenshots from the game.
The game offers 3 different multi-player maps which seem fairly large, certainly compared to Eliminate's current maps.
Both Solo and Team games can be set up with time limits and kill limits. Total online players seem to be limited to 4 so Team play is really 2 on 2.
Once you join a match, you choose which class you would like to be which offers you different weapons.
The people that have been able to play a session , but my experience so far is spotty. I haven't been able to stay connected to a match to really get into a game. [See update below]
As I said before, it's too early to say much about the gameplay as the update was just released. Over the next day, we'll see how the servers pick up and the user base grows. If you own Modern Combat, simply try the update out for yourself. If you were waiting for this update before buying, you'll have to wait a bit longer to get a clear picture. The discussion of the game is continuing in our .
App Store Link:
Update: It seems for those on iPhones, even though you must play over Wi-Fi, seems to actually make a big difference in your Wi-Fi connectivity. It doesn't make sense, so we're not sure if this is a fluke or an actual bug, but if you're having trouble connecting to servers, try this. Now that we've been able to connect, things are running very well.
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