Archive for the ‘Admob’ tag
Three Silly Games You Don’t Need But Should Probably Have Anyway: ‘Frank Further’, ‘Vuvuzela vs Zombies’, and ‘Ow My Balls!’
‘IMO: The World of Magic’ — A Review and In-Depth Look at In-App Purchases
The last few months have seen an explosion of online games hitting the iPhone. Developers are waking to the fact that in today's WiFi world and speedier mobile internet, online content delivery for the iPhone has finally entered the mainstream. Com2Us have tapped into the mother load of online genres, the behemoth (to pronounce) Massively Multiplayer Online RPG, through its release of IMO: The World of Magic [AppStore].
IMO adopts the controversial 'freemium' model, where games are released free to the public, but charge an in-app fee for premium services and items. Instead of just recommending you an app that you can try for yourself, this review should assist to shed light on what is actually available to premium users, and what free users may be missing out on.
Many would be surprised to learn that IMO is in fact a port of a 2006 release on older mobile devices in Korea. The in-game artwork is a give-away in this respect, not being as high-resolution as you would expect from a native iPhone app, but still sporting the vibrant colors and cute characters that the Korean game market is known for. Another apparent symptom of the port to iPhone is an ever-present stutter as the game world scrolls around the character, a factor that detracts from the fluidity of the game and lends it a sometimes lag-like quality.
This shouldn't detract people from enjoying The World of Magic though, as it also happens to be a surprisingly comprehensive MMO that is a heap of fun to play with friends. There are three unique characters to play; a warrior, mage and archer, each of which has a well-developed skill tree up to level 50. These characters can have their appearances customized to a small degree at creation, but to a much greater scale through the many different armor and weapon sets expected of an MMO. IMO also features a full-scale guild and party system, as well as PvP battlegrounds, challenging dungeons and an expansive, open world.
What is more astonishing is that all of the above is available completely gratis. Where your wallets do come into play though is through the auction system. In the middle of town are two traders, both of whom are inaccessible to 'free' players. On purchase of a 'Starter's Pack' for $2.99, the player is bestowed with a Premium Member Ticket. This ticket enables players to access the auction house system, as well as removing in-game AdMob ads that pop up on occasion and cause minor irritation. Prospective traders may also choose to dig further into the purchasable items, as they can have their trading slots expanded to 10 and then to 15 for $0.99 each.
To entice players to pay, the 'Starter's Pack' opts for the carrot rather than the stick. Together with the Premium Ticket, you are given a 7 slot bag (an otherwise expensive in-game item), a random Costume Hat (I got kitty ears!), and a slew of consumable items that cannot be purchased through the in-game currency (and cannot be found either, from what I can tell). Each of these consumables have special effects such as resurrecting on the spot, summoning friends, insuring against item breakage or — strangely — permitting you to shout to all regions. If you had to buy them on their own, they cost between $0.99 and $2.99 for between 3 and 10 items, making the Starter's Pack a bargain.
It really seems as though the Starter's Pack is enough for most to get by with, but in any case IMO is not as restrictive as other 'freemium' games. In fact, it has no inherent requirement to purchase anything at all– so long as you are happy with the ads and aren't using the auction system. The consumable purchases are of questionable use, particularly as they are offered in rather paltry bundles. Whether they become more useful in the latter game is yet to be seen though, as IMO also features a steep levelling curve that appears to require a substantial amount of grinding for both gold and experience.
If you can get past the MMO grind– a fact made easier by the regular PvP battlegrounds that are a real spectacle– IMO has alot going for it in both its social features and its huge game world. It may prove inaccessible to those not willing to ask questions though, as the game documentation is currently a little sparse. Having said that, this is an enjoyable, practically-free title that is capable of consuming countless hours and have you still clamouring for more. Our readers are certainly responding well to IMO, with hundreds of impressions already streaming in to our forums. IMO: The World of Magic can be played over both WiFi and 3G internet.
App Store Link: IMO: The World of Magic, Free (With In-App DLC).
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Live Bloggin’ The Apple iPhone OS 4.0 Keynote
Apple's surprise media event unveiling the iPhone OS 4.0 is set to begin shortly. We'll be providing live updates, and focusing on things that specifically pertain to iPhone gaming or things iPhone gamers might be interested in like all of our other keynote coverage in the past.
Steve Jobs just took the stage, and started things out by talking about the sales figures of the iPad. On Saturday they sold 300,000, and as of today they've sold 450,000. Apple apparently is making them as fast as they can, but notes that Best Buy is already out of stock. On the first day, 1 million paid apps were downloaded, and since then 3.5 million have been. (In addition to 600,000 eBooks.)
Photo courtesy of .
Jobs also mentions that there are over 185,000 apps in the App Store, with over 3,500 iPad apps. He then took some time to show off the more impressive iPad apps in the App Store currently such as the ABC app, Netflix, the Marvel comic book reader, and others. Shifting gears to talk about the iPhone, Steve mentions they've won three JD Power awards for customer satisfaction, and currently holds 64% of the mobile browser market share. Apple has sold over 50 million iPhones, with 85 million combined devices between the iPod touch and iPhone.
iPhone OS 4.0 is coming this summer, with a developer preview available today.
Photo courtesy of .
Photo courtesy of .
Among the seven "tent pole" features of iPhone OS 4.0 is multitasking. Steve goes on to demonstrate how multitasking is going to work. With multiple apps running, double clicking the home button raises a window that looks a lot like the bottom dock of the iPhone showing what apps are running. Tapping an icon instantly switches to that app.
Photo courtesy of .
To explain how this all works while preserving battery life and performance, Steve hands things off to Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone Software. iPhone OS 4.0 will provide seven multitasking services. The first of which is audio streaming, and Forstall specifically cites Pandora as an example of an app that will shine with this functionality. Developing applications to utilize this functionality is apparently extremely easy, as it only took the Pandora developers a day to make the app background aware. Skype also works fantastically with this new functionality, even allowing you to accept calls while running in the background.
Doodle Jump spotted:
Photo courtesy of .
The next multitasking function is background location. Apps that use the GPS functionality such as TomTom will be able to continue routing while in the background. This raises obvious privacy concerns, and a new settings menu will be available to enable and disable location services per application, as well as showing a small arrow icon next to the battery indicator.
Moving on to push notifications, Forstall mentions they've sent over 10 billion notifications since the service went live. Building on push notifications comes local notifications, done entirely on the phone to see alerts from apps you have running in the background. One example mentioned was a popup when a photo was finished uploading to Flickr.
Photo courtesy of .
Steve takes the stage again and announces folders to organize apps. The interface seems an awful lot like the various jailbreak app organization solutions. So far Apple is really knocking it out of the park with this keynote.
Photo courtesy of .
The iPhone mail client is also getting enhanced, with a unified inbox for each email account on the device along with a threaded email view for reading conversations. Unsurprisingly, the iPhone is also getting the iBooks app which will sync pages and bookmarks with other devices that have the app.
Forstall just announced "Game Center", Apple's own gaming social networking service that seems to handle everything Plus+, OpenFeint, and others do with presumably one unified login tied to your iTunes account. Matchmaking, leaderboards, and achievements are all part of it.
Photo courtesy of .
Also mentioned was Apple's own iAd advertisement services, which we expect to see making appearances in many free games that have historically relied on AdMob and other advertising networks.
iPhone OS 4.0 will be coming this fall, and sadly, multitasking will not be supported for the iPhone 3G and second generation iPod touch. That's it folks, Steve is taking questions now.
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Notable Game Updates – February 7-February 13
Angry Birds Current Version: 1.2.0
Our Review
The newest update for Angry Birds is nearly worthy of being a standalone sequel, with 42 new levels across two new graphically unique worlds to play through. Crystal has been been added for leaderboard and achievement support for high score/points junkies, and changes have even been made to older levels, mostly in the form of bug fixes, but with some small graphical enhancements thrown in there as well. I fell in love with Angry Birds when I first reviewed it, so you can bet that I’ll be cranking up the game as soon as I get the chance.
Bird Strike [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2
Our Review
Bird Strike was only released about a month ago, so it’s a nice surprise to see an entirely new game mode (in the form of “Endless Climb mode”) make its way into the game. The new mode really raises the value of the game, but the price hasn’t been raised to correspond with the update, so if you haven’t bought the game yet, now is a great time to do so. Those who’ve owned the game for a while and expressed complaints about 3GS performance and a nasty leaderboard duplication bug can breathe a sigh of relief as well, as Prodigy Design has addressed these issues with this update as well.
Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2.0
Our Coverage
It’s been a long wait since Call of Duty: Zombies‘ initial mid-November launch, but a second map, Verrück, has finally been added for purchase in a massive update. Along with this update and new map comes nine new weapons (including FG-42, Gewehr-43, PPsh-41, M1 Garand, and the Springfield), 13 new achievements for Nacht der Untoten, 10 new achievements for Verrück, engine optimizations to make the game run more smoothly, leaderboard enhancements to track a wider variety of in-game stats, more customizable controls, a tutorial adjustment, network reliability enhancements, a “multiplayer point display” to track other players’ in-game progression, and even French-localized text. The new map and all the goodies that comes along with it will set you back $5.
Doodle Bomb [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2
Our Review
Doodle Bomb’s newest update brings 10 new master missions and five new standard missions for players to play through, along with a new anti-gravity control that lets players reach new places and even roll bombs along ceilings. The master missions have been unlocked for everyone, so you won’t have to meet a certain Bomb Badge requirement to play them now, and a new “variable bomb tilt” feature should provide something fresh for those who’ve conquered the game.
Ghosts’n Zombies [App Store]
Current Version: 1.1
Our Review
This update isn’t a large as many of the others on this list, but it’s notable for removing the AdMob banner ad that we complained about in our review. A couple of bug fixes have also been instituted in the 1.1 update, as has the newest version of OpenFeint. We commend the developers for listening to feedback and taking action on the problems that players were having with the game, and now that this update is out, I don’t feel like there’s much getting in the way of a hearty recommendation from us for this game.
Hook Champ [App Store]
Current Version: 1.40
Our Review
Mingore’s John Gore has finally been added as a playable character in this newest update to the legendary swinging game, and he even comes with a usable machine gun (with unlimited ammo!). New levels have been created for playthrough with John, and a brand new control method has also been added and set as the default control scheme, but veterans of the game still have the option to switch back to the “classic” control scheme if they so wish. Naturally, a variety of bug fixes have been tossed in as well, so this might be an update that brings a lot of people back to the game for more.
Parachute Ninja [App Store]
Current Version: 1.1
Our Review
Parachute Ninja’s 1.1 update is a small one, but it fixes what might’ve been a make-or-break issue that I had with the game when I reviewed it: the tilt auto-calibration that activates with the parachute. This issue really frustrated me during my playthrough of the game, but now that I know I can turn it off, Im extremely likely to return to this beautiful platformer for more.
Sunday Lawn [App Store]
Current Version: 1.10
Sunday Lawn has never been a big seller for Donut Games, but I’ve always liked it quite a bit. This new update should’ve been called 3.0 instead of 1.10, because it literally triples the value of this game. A challenge mode (much like the main game in Comet Racer) has been added, as has a fun little minigame called “Sweet Dreams” in which you must keep Charlie asleep by bouncing sheep over fences. Global leaderboards have been added, and the game finally allows you to start the app with your own music playing to replace the in-game music- a feature that all App Store developers should implement. If you’ve never tried out Sunday Lawn, go purchase it now, because it’s finally on par with all their other awesome games.
Trenches [App Store]
Current Version: 1.2.6
Our Coverage
I’ll admit it: when Trenches was first released, I hated it. I beat the entire game on its normal difficulty setting in less than 20 minutes, a task I completed by simply tapping the “spawn infantry” button over and over until the game abruptly ended. We didn’t give much coverage to the game due to its broken nature upon launch, but now that several updates have been implemented, I returned to Trenches to discover a truly fun, well-balanced game. The newest 1.2.6 update is nothing more than a bunch of bug fixes and further (necessary) unit balancing, but it also addresses the crashing that annoyed tons of people before now. Other past updates, however, have added new modes, length and variety to the campaign, and even improved control methods, morphing what was at first a broken novelty into a legitimately great game. If you’re like me and took a pass on Trenches before, it’s definitely worth revisiting now.
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