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Way back in 2000 when I first started playing The Sims, the big joke was that Sims players were wasting their time living virtual lives when they could be living their own. That stigma faded over time — once MMORPGs made it big, there were bigger time wasters to fry.

But The Sims FreePlay [Free] hearkens back to those early days in more ways than one. For one thing, it’s more like the original than any of the other mobile titles. For another, this game plays in real time. That means when you take the time to send your Sim off to shower, you really could be doing it yourself. Never before has a game given me such an uncomfortable awareness of my own time-wasting — but the returns make it feel worthwhile.

By moving the game into real time, players are free to, well, not play on occasion. Freemium titles like this work on timers, and timers have to keep moving while you’re away. Since the game is all about micromanaging your Sims lives, imagine a 20 minute day — step out for an extended lunch in real life, and all your Sims would have starved away to nothing.

Instead, you can pop in to babysit them as little as once or twice a day, or as often as you want. It’s a lot like playing The Sims with autonomy turned off: your Sims will do nothing on their own. They will suffer, starve and humiliate themselves if you’re not there to care for them. Will they die? I couldn’t bring myself to let it go that far. Seeing their tiny, defeated frames as they stood there starving a few steps from a fridge was enough of a heart-breaker.

If you want your Sims to take on gainful employment, you’ll need to stop in a bit more often. Jobs also function in real time, so if you’re not able to play around, say, 8 am there will be certain jobs you’ll want to avoid. It’s awkward, but your Sims really don’t care — they lack interests, desires or skills, so one job is as good as the next.

That’s the fundamental problem of The Sims FreePlay: if every action is equally good, they all start to feel a bit pointless. You can send your Sim down for a quick nap that takes 4 minutes or a deep sleep that takes 8 hours, and the only difference is the amount of experience you’ll earn at the end of it. It’s streamlined gameplay that works exceptionally well for a freemium title, but feels a bit pointless when compared to the desktop titles.

Still, as a freemium game The Sim FreePlay works very well. Grinding for experience takes a back seat to entertainment. You can customize your Sims’ looks and outfits. You can play with their hearts, setting up love triangles and household-spanning affairs. You can set your Sims to gardening and play Farmville-lite. You can rebuild their homes and decorate with a decent selection of furniture and decor. Playing interior decorator is always my favorite part.

Of course, to buy furniture you need money. Your Sims can earn their simoleons by going to work, selling the fruits of their gardening labor and playing with their pets. Or you can skip all that and just buy them. You can also buy lifestyle points, which can be used to instantly complete timers or purchase some awesome furniture and houses. Lifestyle points can also be earned as you level up and complete missions.

Here’s the rub: simoleons and lifestyle points are expensive. The smallest simoleon packs you can buy are $4.99, and give you about enough cash to buy one shop in town. You can do it all yourself instead, but it’s going to be a long grind to buy homes to unlock all 16 Sims, open all the shops and build all the workplaces.

If you go into the game looking for the next great Sims title, you’ll be disappointed. The game is all surface without much underlying personality. But if you’re looking for a new freemium title to sink your teeth into, The Sims FreePlay offers so much fun and variety that you’ll barely notice the same old timers underpinning the works. That’s no small achievement. If you find yourself as hooked as I am, stop by our discussion thread and share your thoughts.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Back in July I had the pleasure of welcoming one of my favorite shooters of all time, Cope-Com’s excellent Battle Squadron, into the App Store in the form of a native iOS port of the original Amiga game. Today I’m happy to bring news of a new, lower-priced iPad-only release of the title featuring two-player, split-screen action and Game Center achievements as well as an update to the original, universal release.

The new iPad-only release, entitled Battle Squadron ONE 2-player [App Store], allows two players to face off on the same device, thanks to a new split-screen, portrait play mode that lets you and a friend share in the action (for those equipped with a friend). In this mode, each player is able to choose their own control configuration, and gameplay is as smooth and fast-paced as it is in the one-player mode. What’s more, two-player network gameplay is planned for a future update.

A number of other improvements have arrived in this new release, as well. The game features 36 Game Center achievements and a new super-tough “Air Commodore” difficulty level (get it?) with a particularly intense level ending. Cope-Com has listened to player feedback and has tweaked every control mode and rolled-in a new one. The main user complaint was that it was “tedious” to have to move a finger all over the entire screen to control the ship. To address this, a drag control mode with 2x the movement vs. finger rate was added (with the original 1x control still available). Additionally, the joypad and tilt control modes have been adjusted to allow movement in all directions (analog) as opposed to the earlier release’s 8-way (digital) movement.

While the iPad-only Battle Squadron ONE 2-player is indeed a new release, the original, universal version of the game has been renamed Battle Squadron ONE [App Store] (from BattleSquadr1) and has inherited all of the enhancements that the new iPad-only release brings, plus the ability to run on both the iPhone (one-player only, right now) and the iPad, natively. What’s more, Cope-Com has lowered the bar on the minimum-spec supported devices, bringing support for the iPhone 3G and 2G iPod touch. An important distinction to iOS gamers just walking into this situation is that the iPad-only release is priced $1 less than the universal version.

As I’ve indicated in the past, Battle Squadron is perhaps my favorite scrolling shooter of all time. The Amiga version is superb, and the iOS version has been excellently translated. With this release, there’s even more goodness to be had. I can’t recommend Battle Squadron ONE highly enough to any iOS gamer out there.

And, my Amiga-using brothers and sisters, note the little bit of goodness pictured down in the corner of the options screen. We’ve mentioned it here before, but it’s a happy reminder — the precursor of Battle Squadron, the Amiga scrolling shooter Hybris from Cope-Com, will be arriving in the App Store sometime next year. Stay tuned!

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Every iOS game has a story behind its development, but the one behind MinoMonsters [$0.99] may have been one you’ve already heard if you pay attention to iOS news. Like that the guys that founded the company that made the game are some of the youngest game designers to score an investment of this size for their project ( a cool million, to be exact), but they have some meaty people on board too, such as TJ Murphy, who co-founded the Social Gaming Network. In other words, MinoMonsters has a hell of a pedigree. And with that kind of story behind it, well, it’s hard not to expect one hell of a game.

Luckily, the final product is pretty stellar. MinoMonsters operates off the Pokemon strategy, as it puts you in the role of an (unseen) hero who collects adorable creatures and trains them to fight on your behalf as you progress through a lush world populated by a series of different stages. The game looks like a comic book in action, and is absolutely gorgeous to play – definitely a standout when it comes to what’s on the App Store. There are tons of cute titles out there, but MinoMonsters looks and plays like a really handsome action RPG. Since I love that genre, I was instantly hooked on the combination of monster training and exploring.

Speaking of how it plays, there are four worlds to explore, and you’ll start simply with only one Mino by your side. As you explore the worlds, you’ll have a small log at the top of your screen that lists your quests. Some are fetch quests a’la MMO style (fight this many guys, etc), but others will have you looking for a big Mino to save or other such quests. When you get one of these latter quests, there will be a circular icon with a tiny arrow attached to it to help you navigate your way towards it with more ease.

Movement is flawless — with the exception of the back home and quest icons at the top middle of the screen, there are not a lot of buttons to contend with. Each world is made up of a series of platforms you’ll jump between to move around, and when you land on one with a Mino on it, a fight ensues. You can either engage in the fight by tapping the Mino with your finger for a normal attack or choosing a special attack from the bottom of the screen.

However, to do so, you’ll need to earn lightning bolt icons to fill up that bar. Every time you get a hit in, the enemies will drop hearts, lightning bolts, and stars. These respectively fill up your life bar, your special attack bar, and your experience rating post fight. The way the enemies drop these works very well too, as it allows you to keep fighting. It’s also worth mentioning that the more care you take with your Minos, the better they will perform in fights for you — something I’ll explain next here.

At any time in your explorations, you can touch the home button up top and find yourself on the Mino island. You’ll see the Minos you have equipped, and be able to interact with them by touching them. Each will have an icon over its head to tell you how comfortable it is feeling with you. In order to make the Minos happy, you need to periodically come to the island and make sure you feed them goodies. When you have the opportunity to after some time exploring, there will be a heart over their heads, and you can touch it and feed them a slew of hearts and smile faces. This warms them to you and makes them better fighters. If you neglect coming to this screen, they will come to like you less and less.

This screen also has the shop on it, which will enable you to purchase new monsters, collars for them to toughen them up, gems to make them more powerful, and candy, which is what you feed Minos in order to capture them. These are all microtransactions, so you’ll have to spend real money if you want to do any of this.

You are given some candy to start the game off with, but once you run out, you’ll have to wait one day in-game to get 5 more. You also use these to run in battles, which means that it’s fairly easy to run out of them quickly. This was one part of MinoMonsters I did not care for. I do not like feeling forced to participate in microtransactions, but considering how integral the candy is to gameplay, it seems to me that it would have been nice to at least find one in boxes from time to time. However, the MinoMonsters team have mentioned on their Facebook page that they will be adding an update in the future that will make candy easier to earn, so it’s nice to see the developers on top of user feedback and aiming to please.

My only other complaint is that I think MinoMonsters needed more music. The sound effects are fine, but it made no sense to me that the overworld and the Mino island was silent. I actually looked to make sure I didn’t mute something. It’s a small bone to pick, but with a world as enchanting as this one at your fingertips, it seems it would have only been further enhanced by music to make that atmosphere a place you want to spend that much more time in.

You can play MinoMonsters alone just fine, but the creators really intended it to be an experience you share with friends. You can use the friends button to add Facebook friends, and once you do, that’s when you can start pitting your monsters against your friends’ monsters. I am solo gamer for the most part, but I can easily see how battling your friends could become something I wanted to do a lot.

I think MinoMonsters has the potential to become a pretty big deal. It’s in a hell of a package, and it’s clear that the developers want to continue expanding the world and building upon what they have. They have been clear in interviews that they would like this game to be the next Angry Birds, which is a lofty goal. However, I enjoyed it a great deal more than I did Angry Birds, so take from that what you will. At the price, I consider it a must-download, as it’s easily some of the most fun I’ve had with an iOS title in some time.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Controversial is probably the best word for War on Terror [$1.99]. Originally a board game conceived by Terror Bull Games in 2003, War on Terror has precipitated everything from bans to death threats – true story, I swear. As you can imagine, when the iOS version was released, there was significant concern about it being forcibly annulled from the App Store. It wasn’t, and I’m damn well glad for that because War on Terror is the sort of game you should at least play once.

Fans of the title should be forewarned, however. The iOS version is significantly watered down compared to the original. There is no Axis of Evil. There are no off-board negotiations or dealings. Defeated players do not become terrorist nations. You don’t even get situational cards. Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the fact that War on Terror is surprisingly fun and, once you’ve realized the genius behind it, devilishly clever.

But we’re moving a little too fast. Let’s take a few steps back and take a look at how the game actually plays. When you first start the game, you’ll be asked to select your avatar (this is purely cosmetic, by the way) and the number of players you wish to play against. After that, you’ll be dropped into a world map with a few nations under your control. To win, you must accumulate a certain amount of liberty points. How do you do that? By taking over continents (each continent rewards you with a certain amount of points). I’m totally serious about this.

If you cringed at that, you should probably stop reading now because it gets a lot worse. Did you know that the total annihilation of a player in War on Terror is usually accompanied with fanfare and a declaration that the aforementioned individual has been liberated. Ahem. Moving on.

The actual gameplay itself is relatively straightforward. During each turn, a set of dice is rolled and countries with the corresponding number will reward its owner with a certain amount of money. You’ll also be able to do things like establish alliances (these seldom seem to help), declare war on others, develop the countries under your ownership (the better developed the country, the greater the revenue you receive from them), indulge in a spot of terrorism (they’re surprisingly effective), build defenses (protect a country against radioactive assaults or common-place rabble; it’s your choice) and even initiate nuclear attacks (exactly what you think it is).

Complex as all that might sound, it’s not. War happens when you click on an adjacent nation and select the appropriate option. Victory is even less hands-on; a win is determined by whether or not your dice rolls are above a five.

Such is the case for everything else as well; it’s all a matter of pointing and clicking. However, what makes War on Terror shine is the way the game enforces the need for proper accountancy. For example, you can wage war as much as you like – just make sure you have a minimum of forty million in your bank. Want to call a nuclear strike? Sure. Have five hundred million in reserve. No one ever said it was easy to be a world leader. If anything, it’s bloody expensive. Guerrilla warfare, on the other hand, is not.

In fact, compared to everything else, terrorism is almost mind-bogglingly cheap. You’ll only need to spend ten million in order to send your incendiaries anywhere in the world. As an added bonus, you won’t have to worry about weathering retaliation either – radicals in this game are rather close-mouthed about their affiliations.

For the sake of decorum, I’m going to forgo discussing the political aspects of the game. You can come to your own conclusions yourself. However, I will have to say that War on Terror is rather compelling. Once you’ve gotten into the swing of things, it’s easy to get caught up in the act of expansion, in worrying about the next oil turn and whether you will be a prince or a pauper. Do you play nice with your neighbors or do you move for the kill? Do you spread like a venereal disease or do you focus on building up the nations under your control?

Like any good iOS game, it’s simple but prone towards provoking ‘one more turn’ instincts. Graphics-wise, War on Terror will likely be a hit or a miss. If you enjoy the political cartoons in the newspaper, you’ll probably like it. If not, well, it’s not intolerable. It’s just not something to shout about.

As I’ve mentioned before, War on Terror is a game that you need to experience at least once. But only once. Re playability is a big issue here for me. After beating it once, I feel little imperative to do so again, an odd turn of circumstances given that War on Terror was derived from a board game. I imagine that this opinion might change once online multiplayer (hot seating could have worked brilliant too, guys) is introduced but for now, it is a problem. Still, if you’re willing to overlook that, War on Terror remains a rather brilliant if possibly misguided piece of political satire and a rather entertaining game to boot.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Hot off the heels of the announcement of a brand new Command and Conquer at the VGAs, EA has announced… another Command and Conquer game. This one, however, isn’t being hailed as the Next Great Thing From BioWare, and more relevant to our interests, is being targeted specifically at mobile, and the flavor of the moment, social.

So, what is it? It’s called Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances, and it’s “the first MMO and first free-to-play” game in the often off-the-wall real-time strategy series. In the game, users will embark on a quest “for world domination” that will apparently have them squad-ing up with pals in order to form alliances. Real-time stats, news feeds, and “completely interactive and dynamic gameplay” are all being promised. Sounds neat!

That’s all pretty vague, and that’s a bummer considering this is an otherwise exciting bit of news that fans will definitely want to discuss. Hopefully we’ll get our hands on the cross-compatible browser or mobile version soon and give you more concrete stuff.

While you wait, actually, you can sign up to participate in the game’s closed beta on its web site. This beta starts on December 15 and rolls until whenever.

[Via GamesRadar]

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Games that tie in to major properties are sometimes, shall we say, a little lacking. So you might be tempted to think that Assassin’s Creed Recollection [99¢] is just your average cash-in, perhaps a standard collectable card game with images of franchise heroes Altaïr ibn-La’Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze slapped on the cards. You can stop thinking that right about now, because this game is something far more interesting.

That’s not to say it’s without its problems — Ubisoft has been chasing down some big-time bugs since the game was released — but Assassin’s Creed Recollection is more than just another coat of paint on the traditional CCG. It takes the formula real time, pitting you and your opponent against the clock as well as each other.

Once you get past the game’s peculiar jargon (cards are Memories, decks are Sequences, creatures are Agents, mana is Gold — it’s all very Assassin’s Creed), you’ll find a CCG with several creative tweaks. Turns are gone, period. Instead, everything is measured by day. You get one new card in your hand each day, and summoning agents takes half a day. You and your opponent do everything simultaneously, something that would get messy in your average CCG but is handled elegantly here.

You see, you aren’t playing directly against your opponent, who has no health or tokens to speak of. You’re sending your agents out to campaign in regions that dominate the play field. To win, you need to control the majority of those regions at the same time. If one of your agents finishes a campaign in a region without being opposed, you earn that agent’s attack power in points. Ten points and you control the region. So off you go, slapping down agents, throwing them in front of your opponent’s agents and claiming regions until one of you is victorious.

There’s quite a bit more to it — you can place Sites on each region that earn points every day, and you can also throw down Actions, which are used to interrupt enemies or boost your own cards. And you have to control your income, the amount of gold you earn each day, because every card has a cost and most of those costs are steep. It’s a bit complex, but Assassin’s Creed Recollections does a great job of walking you through the basics with a thorough tutorial.

Unfortunately, you come out the other side of that tutorial and slam directly into a wall. The first real mission in the single-player campaign pulls exactly no punches, and your default deck is more than a little lackluster. So, in a move that should come as no surprise to CCG players, you’ll probably need to buy some boosters.

To Ubisoft’s credit, they don’t start you off with a paywall. You’ll have quite a few credits by the time you emerge from the tutorial, enough to buy quite a few packs if you’re thrifty. They don’t do such a good job of explaining the difference between the inexpensive Templar packs and the rather pricey Assassin’s packs. As it turns out, they give cards from separate pools, and the Assassin’s cards are not so much stronger as they are targeted to advanced play styles. So go for the Templar packs at first.

The cards you’ll receive from these booster packs are sure to delight any Assassin’s Creed fan. They, and the game’s story, are largely pulled from Assassin’s Creed 2, and they feature plenty of familiar faces. The cards cover everyone from Rosa the thief to Rodrigo Borgia and every Assassin, Templar, courtesan and scholar between. They’re separated into factions, and while each of your decks can only contain two factions and the unaffiliated gold cards, you’ll collect plenty of each in your booster purchases. You can’t currently complete your collection with single-card purchases, but the upcoming Auction House sounds like it will address that problem.

The single-player campaign, which has you winding your way through fair Italia as an inexperienced Templar, will take skilled players a couple hours, and CCG newbies a fair bit more. It has limited replayability since you can’t continuously earn extra credits or experience by replaying old missions. At that point, if not before, you’ll need to move into multiplayer, where you can stomp friends and strangers alike.

Overall, I’m more than satisfied with the core game. The rest of the trappings are a bit less impressive. The out-of-game interface is governed by a confusing mix of swipes and taps, which is compounded by a lack of responsiveness in certain menus. Miss the fact that you can access the menu at any point by swiping down with two fingers (mentioned once and otherwise never indicated) and you may end up wondering why there’s no way to pause or forfeit a match. There are Game Center achievements, several of them, specifically for buying credits with IAP.

More damningly, there seem to be issues with the purchase of booster packs. If the Ubisoft servers are down when you buy a booster, you may not be able to open it until they’re back up. According to some folks in our discussion thread, this may sometimes result in lost cards, though we haven’t been able to confirm the problem. I’m sure the server check-in cuts down on cheating, but it also cuts down on players’ ability to access the content they’ve purchased. Add to that a crash bug effecting existing players that was introduced in the current patch and I grow wary of recommending this game before these issues are ironed out, though a just-released patch looks to address some of this. Also, the game is currently on sale for 99¢, which might make it a worthwhile deal for putting up with some bumps in the road during post-release updating.

If you’re a CCG lover who also happens to be a fan of Assassin’s Creed, though, Recollection really is worth a look. It doesn’t add much to the mythos, but it makes great use of the IP. As a bonus, the short film Embers is included, along with a gallery of concept art for Uplay users. But Assassin’s Creed Recollection isn’t just for fanboys — it’s a genuinely engaging card game with a surprising depth of strategy. Hopefully Ubisoft will be prompt in fixing the bugs, but the core game is intact in the meantime. Just go easy on the IAP.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Hello. My name is Cassandra and I have a problem. I’m a recovering trading card game-holic. I used to play them obsessively – just ask my wallet. But I’ve been getting better. I’ve been clean for a while but I have doubts that it is going to last. There’s a new game in town and it’s smart, sexy and exotic. Meet Cabals: The Card Game [Free], ladies and gentlemen, and kiss your productivity good-bye.

Developed by Finnish Kyy Games, Cabals has all the necessary hallmarks of the genre: exceptional artwork, warring factions, creatures to summon, resources to manage, booster packs – you name it, they’ve got it.

The world of Cabals: The Card Game is a familiar one. It’s our own, after all. The key players here are the Cabals, secret societies comprised of witches and steam punk magicians, of Russians and alchemists and faerie pigs. As is often the case with anything eldritch in nature, these Cabals don’t get along too well. This, obviously enough, is where you come in. You’re one of the vanguards and you will fight for the glory of your faction. Or something like that.

One thing I really liked about Kyy Games’ new title is the exceedingly robust cross-platform online gameplay that it provides. I know, I know. This isn’t anything new, per se. We’ve had cross-platform games for ages. But bear with me. Most games have limitations. With Cabals, things are a little different. Not only will you be able to take on players on the iOS platform, you’ll also be able to challenge everyone from Mac Users to Android-wielding associates. In short, if it runs Unity, it will run Cabals and it will run it beautifully. (Facebook and Windows 7 versions are apparently in the works too.)

So, we’ve got kick-ass online services and a delightful urban-fantasy setting checked. What else has Kyy Games brought to the table? A lot, I would say. Cabals: The Card Game is a somewhat nontraditional take on the idea. More a TCG/board game hybrid than anything else, Cabals will not have you safely seated on your side of the metaphorical table as you work on whittling your opponent’s health down to zero. No, sir. Things are much different here.

In Cabals, you’re going to have to either storm the Stronghold (it’s usually the tile furthest away from your own and marked with a little castle-like symbol) or acquire 60 Domination points (this usually entails conquering approximately sixty tiles) in order to win. Your choice. Just be forewarned – it’s not as easy as it sounds. Units can only be brought into play through your Stronghold or a ‘deployment location’ that you control. Does that mean you should rush towards those hot spots? Not really. It depends on your playstyle. Can you afford risking the possibility of being flanked? Can you control your opponent’s wanton expansion in the mean time? What about your Stronghold? Do you worry about it or do you charge for the other guy’s Stronghold first?

But before you get into all of that, you had better damn well make sure you have enough resources at your disposal first. Do you finance spells or units? Do you go for quality or quantity? And if that wasn’t enough to worry about, you’re also going to have to take positioning into account as it is far too easy to maneuver yourself into a corner should you be careless.

As for the rest of it, it’s all pretty straightforward. Movement is accomplished by dragging and dropping a unit onto an adjacent square. Combat is performed when two units are within range (and by dragging and dropping one onto another). Damage is determined by the power that a unit has and occasionally by certain special attributes. Spells work pretty much the same way as units – their individual effects can be found on the cards themselves.

Sometimes, a laborious dance worthy of the grandmasters of chess and sometimes, a mad rush for control, Cabals is easy to grasp and surprisingly deep for something that can, at times, feel like a distilled version of the genre. It currently operates on a freemium model so you’re going to have to spend some real world cash to purchase more cards. Fortunately, you won’t get assaulted by constant demands to spend money so that’s always a plus. As an added bonus, the amount of influence points (which is their name for in-game currency) that you receive when you register yourself is actually fairly hefty so chances are, if you’re going to make this a casual experience, you’ll probably never find yourself reaching for your wallet.

TouchArcade Rating:

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Back in late October we posted an update on Elite Systems‘ coming Elite Collection (iPhone) and Elite Collection HD (iPad) apps, which will offer a bundled collection of classic Commodore 8-bit home computer games, as well as an in-app game store for purchasing additional singles and bundled arrangements of games. At that time, Elite indicated that these applications would be delayed due to a trademark complication. We’re now happy to report the studio has informed us that the titles will land in the App Store on Friday, December 16th, and at a one-week promotional launch price of $0.99 each.

As we detailed earlier in October, the Elite Collection apps will come bundled with the following titles:

• Elite Collection Vol. #1:
  • featuring ALTERNATE REALITY: THE CITY and also including
  • Black Magic
  • Alternate Reality: The Dungeon
• Elite Collection Vol. #2:
  • featuring URIDIUM and also including
  • Buggy Boy (a.k.a. Speed Buggy)
  • First Samurai
• Elite Collection Vol. #3:
  • featuring BUNDESLIGA MANAGER and also including
  • Denaris
  • Enforcer: Fullmetal Megablaster
• Additional 8-bit “Singles”:
  • Battleships (a.k.a. Battleship)
  • Frank Bruno’s Boxing
  • Batty

In addition, at launch, there will be 16 more titles available for purchase through the in-app game store. We will provide full details of everything that’s available, as well as a closer look at the collection itself, when the apps land this weekend.

But, for now, know that some of the particular stand-outs include:

• Datasoft’s Bruce Lee
• Palace’s Cauldron
• Gremlin’s Monty on the Run
• Alternative Software’s Skool Daze
• Thalamus’ visually stunning Creatures 2: Torture Trouble

Elite mentions, in their release, that they are committed to improving and furthering the apps in the months ahead, as well as adding to the titles available in the in-app game store. A few of the titles they name as planned / hopeful additions are Archon II: Adept, Stunt Car Racer, Mercenary: Escape from Targ, and M.U.L.E. At the time of the October delay announcement, The Bards Tale (I, II & III), Wasteland, Dragon Wars, and Neuromancer were also named as titles likely to become available through the Elite Collection.

Many of the titles in the coming Elite Collection apps are also being released as stand-alone games. Their most recent round of releases consisted of Denaris, Paradroid, and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon. All of the Elite Collection games feature the studio’s customizable “iDaptive” control system, and iCade support is said to be on the way.

Elite Systems also offers the ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection for the iPhone as well as the iPad, which are collections of ZX Spectrum games along with an associated in-app game store.

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iPhone controller accessories have been generating a good bit of news, here lately. More and more existing iOS titles are gaining physical control options via updates, and just last week we detailed the upcoming Gametel Bluetooth controller that will soon become a game-enhancing iOS controller option, alongside the iCade and iControlPad. The more the merrier, true, but long time readers may recall yet another controller we covered over a year ago that has been off the radar ever since. Does anyone remember the GameBone?

Once again, Stuart Carnie of Manomio (whose C64 for iPhone just got iCade support) reached out and pinged me to share a bit of exciting tech he’s had his eye on, and I’m quite eager to fill the rest of you in.

Stuart showed me the following proof-of-concept video done by Jason Chan of Australian firm 22Moo, the main man behind the GameBone controllers, depicting the venerable Competiton Pro joystick — a standard, 9-pin Atari-style joystick — tethered to a Bluetooth controller board, controlling Stuart’s retro iOS port of Flashback [App Store] via iCade emulation. It’s pretty awesome stuff.

I got in touch with Chan and inquired as to what his intentions are regarding this demonstrated technology, and also regarding the GameBone controller we last heard about so long ago.

Chan informs me that he and his team are currently deciding whether they should supply the GameBone Bluetooth Module (GBM) to game accessory manufacturers, to the general public as a DIY kit, or to both. As far as I’m concerned, even if I have to bring out the trusty old soldering iron, the prospect of using any Atari-style joystick I want with iCade-compatible games is a magical one, not to be missed. Chan also let us know that 22Moo is working with a PC / PS3 /XBOX 360 game accessory manufacturer to bring this technology forth in the form of both single- and dual-stick X-Arcade-style joystick boxes for iOS and Android devices.

That’s not the end of the GameBone news, however. Chan has made us aware of three coming devices that are currently in development and will be made available to iOS gamers in the future. The devices in question are:

• GameBone Racer – A desk-mounted steering-wheel accessory for the iPad that will enter the final prototype stage by week’s end (pictured).
• GameBone GSR – A device that attaches to two of the user’s fingers that allows him or her to effectively control games with their mind. The GSR uses biofeedback technology similar to that used in lie detectors. 22Moo is partnering with a Polish firm that has experience with this technology on the PC. The first prototype is completed and a second prototype is scheduled for February 2012
• GameBone VT / Virtual Touch – A system in the very early stages of development that allows users to attach tiny “fingers” to a device’s screen in order to simulate physical touch by way of push buttons on an external control device. The GBVT is designed to be integrated into classic gamepads and joysticks to allow them to work with games designed purely for touch.

These are all devices that we were, previously, unaware of. The GameBone device that we have heard of, the one that we spoke of back in September of last year, is now known as the GameBone Pro, and we can’t share what we’ve learned about it with readers just yet, unfortunately. News will come in time, however…

In the discussions with Stuart and Jason Chan, something else we were unaware of came to light. And, I’ve not seen this reported anywhere, and so I think many are in the dark on this — and it’s a pretty big thing for accessory makers.

Some time back, we explained that the reason the iCade emulates a keyboard — and that the reason, until recently, that no analog sticks would work under standard iOS — is due to restrictions Apple places on the type of Bluetooth connection that an accessory can make with an iOS device. That is indeed the case for Bluetooth 2.x, which is the standard protocol on all iOS devices. There is one iOS device, however, that is capable of communicating via Bluetooth 4.0 LE (low-energy): the iPhone 4S. No other iOS device — not even the iPad 2 — is able to utilize this protocol. The exciting thing about this is that an accessory can, right now, connect to an iPhone 4S via Bluetooth 4.0 LE in a manner that provides the roomy datastream that can easily and properly accommodate things like multiple analog sticks — and without the need of any sort of approval from, or cooperation with, Apple.

So, there it is. There’s nothing in the way of vendors creating and selling full-featured controllers with zero latency, other than the want of the protocol on more (future) iOS devices. Of course, Apple could always choose to open up Bluetooth 2.x and allow all iOS devices to support such high-bandwidth connection profiles, but it’s unclear if they ever will.

Stay tuned for more details on the upcoming line of GameBone accessories from 22Moo as well as any of the other accessory makers out there.

[ Chan will be providing us a more detailed video demonstrating the GameBone Bluetooth Module later in the day, at which point we will update this story, so stay tuned. ]

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I have a confession to make: I never played The Bard’s Tale [$6.99] when it hit consoles back in 2004 (nor did I ever play the original 1985 version on PC). So, when the game made its recent debut on the App Store, I welcomed the opportunity to check out the quirky action-RPG. As it turns out, not only does The Bard’s Tale make a smooth transition to the small screen, but the great tongue-in-cheek story still works for folks that are looking to try it out for the first time, assuming they can get past the simplistic (and somewhat stale) gameplay mechanics.

For those that haven’t played it before, The Bard’s Tale follows the story of the unnamed protagonist as he gets swept away in a story rife with RPG clichés and humor.  Even though the game hardly ever takes itself seriously, the writing and humor remain well done and are the stars of the game. The voice acting also deserves a special mention, with Cary Elwes (of Princess Bride fame) as the voice of the bard. There are some that may roll their eyes at the sarcastic humor, but I believe that it’s actually a big part of the appeal as too many games take themselves way too seriously these days.

Gameplay-wise, Bard’s Tale is a top-down action RPG with a somewhat basic real time battle system. At the start, players can wield various close and long range weapons and execute simplistic combos to take down your foes. Every couple of levels, players are also given an opportunity to choose traits, which range from earning additional gold, to special ranged shots, to unlocking weapon specializations like two-handed swords and dual-wielding.

Players also earn money by picking up random treasure drops from slain baddies and random chests, which are used to purchase weapons and armor. The Bard’s Tale may not be as robust as newer games in terms of character customization, but it gets the job done as far as providing an adequate gameplay experience. Furthermore, the game is absolutely massive in terms of the main adventure as well as optional quests.

In addition, a big part of the gameplay in The Bard’s Tale is its comprehensive summoning system. The bard can summon a wide variety of companions from support-based characters to offensive warriors. You start out with a limited amount of companions, but you learn more as you complete the main story. It’s always recommended to have someone summoned to help you in battle, and a lot of the strategy in the latter part of the game will be choosing the most helpful companion for the situation.

From a controls standpoint, The Bard’s Tale offers an option of a virtual joystick and a touch-based controls scheme. The joystick works well enough, although I would have liked it placed a little further from the corner of the screen for comfort purposes. Meanwhile, I just didn’t like the touch-based controls as you seem to lose a lot of versatility with this method, especially during battles. I’d consider these concerns to be relatively minor but potentially frustrating, considering the difficulty of the game.

One area that may pose a problem for some players is the surprisingly hard difficulty (at least, compared to other iOS action-RPGs). The majority of my playtime was done on the normal difficulty and I found myself having to do quite a bit of experience and money grinding just to give myself a fighting chance while playing. In addition, the lack of a ‘save anywhere’ system makes for some frustrating scenarios if you happen to die before you make it to a checkpoint (a definite possibility when you’re dealing with random encounters on the world map).

Also, it’s important to note that despite the relatively simple battle system, you cannot expect to bowl over mobs of enemies by mashing the attack button (ok you can, but only after some serious grinding); there are too many enemies with special abilities such as knockbacks and healing spells. Instead, you’ll have to actually prioritize enemies and employ actual techniques like using your companion to divide and conquer. It seems obvious, but there aren’t a lot of action-RPGs on the App Store that actually require some organization and planning. Of course, folks can also take advantage of several IAPs ranging from extra gold to stat increases, which basically put the game on easy mode.

Whether or not you end up enjoying The Bard’s Tale depends greatly on your priority for what makes a good game. If you care more about story and overall presentation, then Bard’s humorous story, great voice acting, and decent graphics should leave you highly satisfied. The visuals are particularly well done on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, as the added effects look great on these devices. However, players looking for a robust battle and character customization system may be disappointed as these areas are definitely where the game shows its age. Either way, despite its age, The Bard’s Tale merits at least some consideration and is recommended for any fan of action-RPGs.

TouchArcade Rating:

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