Archive for the ‘New York’ tag
Developers Scramble to Get iPads to Test Games, iPad Doodle Jump On the Way
Lima Sky's Igor and Marko Pusenjak were in the New York Times today as part of this weekend's iPad launch.
With the U.S. release of the iPad on Saturday, most developers have had no chance to test their games on the iPad prior. Only a handful of developers were given early access to the iPad, which left many developers scrambling to get iPads in hand as soon as possible. The Pusenjaks were uneasy about submitting an iPad version of Doodle Jump without first testing it on the units, especially since it heavily relies on the accelerometer. They got to work on the new version of Doodle Jump right after buying the iPad on Saturday morning in New York City.
“Plenty of people will see a nice spike in downloads today, but we’re more concerned with the long-term stability of our application,” Igor said. The brothers estimate that it could take a few days before they were satisfied with the game.
App Store Link: Doodle Jump, $0.99
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iPad Reviews Released, Video Hands-On, and New Games
As we get closer and closer to iPad zero hour, even more details on the device are hitting the internet. Most interesting from a gaming perspective is a brief hands on with an actual iPad showing several games running on the device that we haven't seen before including a few seconds of Plants vs Zombies for the iPad in this video from ABC News:
Larger version available at
PCMag also put up a video review of the iPad which goes over most aspects of the device, but if you skip to about the four minute mark you can see a few brief clips of Real Racing HD:
Other reviews are also coming in from the usual suspects:
And finally, shows another huge push of iPad games and apps. We're likely going to spend the rest of the night combing through these and post anything we find that's interesting. Stay tuned!
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GDC 2010: Major ‘Train Conductor’ Update Previewed
Autralian-based iPhone developer were also present at GDC 2010 and gave us a preview of their next major update to Train Conductor. Train Conductor is a chaos management game that was originally released in December. We reviewed the game and found it to be fun and frantic. The main criticism of the game has been a lack of endless or survival mode — but readers should be happy to know that this mode will be added to the coming update.
The other big feature for the new version is the addition of new America map and levels (shown above). The new levels we were shown were based on the Grand Canyon and New York City Subway. See our hands on video to see them in action.
The update will be free and due in late April. The current version of Train Conductor remains available for $1.99.
App Store Link: Train Conductor, $1.99
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Coming Soon: ‘The Red Star’ – Both a Top Down Shooter and Beat ‘Em Up Game
, a New York based publisher, announced Friday that they plan to release an iPhone and PSPgo port of “” early this spring. The Red Star was a popular shooter/action game for the Playstation 2 that was based off the graphic novel of the same name.
The game was a blend of top down shooting and side scrolling beat ’em levels. It also had some RPG elements, with characters being able to upgraded abilities at the end of levels.
Here is a trailer for the PS2 version:
XS Games says that both the PSPgo and iPhone are the perfect new home for the game. They say by releasing the game on these platforms it will allow them to improve the game play and graphics of the game while keeping the price fair. We will have to wait till spring to see if they deliver.
Screenshots of the iPhone version:
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Freeverse President Ian Lynch Smith on the Recent Purchase by Ngmoco
As a followup to yesterday's inteview with ngmoco CEO Neil Young, this morning we spoke with Freeverse President Ian Lynch Smith to hear what the recent purchase of Freeverse by ngmoco means to them. The full audio is attached below, but here is a summary of the talk.
Originally founded in 1994, Freeverse's earliest titles were Mac shareware games. They later branched out in to games for Windows, XBOX Live Arcade, and most recently the iPhone. Freeverse's MotoChaser was one of the few 3D games that launched with the App Store. Also immediately available were Big Bang Sudoku and Jared. They then went on to release a catalog of great iPhone games, both developed in house and and by outside developers published by Freeverse.
Photo by
Since the surprise announcement yesterday of ngmoco's purchase of Freeverse, what we've all been wondering is what is going to change. Ngmoco has recently shifted gears to an entirely free to play business model, while Freeverse has been happily releasing massively successful 99¢ games like Skee-Ball and Flick Fishing while working on highly anticipated games such as Warpgate.
The short answer of what is going to change initially is almost nothing, with very little changing in the future aside from the shift in payment models. According to Ian Lynch Smith, they wouldn't have done the deal if it wasn't for the shared vision between both companies, as each of them focus on the iPhone and iPhone OS. This doesn't mean they're abandoning the Mac games, applications, and everything else they do either. Freeverse will remain its own company in Brooklyn, just as a wholly owned subsidiary of ngmoco.
In addition, Freeverse will continue to publish the works of other iPhone developers, with the same level of quality and care we've seen in the past. As Smith put it, "[Ngmoco] did not buy Freeverse to make radical changes. They bought us because of our success, and they bought us because of what we've been doing right."
From Freeverse's perspective, the main motivation behind agreeing to this deal is the immense potential for growth. Through the years they've done everything they could to reach a larger audience, originally starting with shareware, then making the jump to retail shelves, then bringing their games to both the PC and XBOX, and finally jumping on the iPhone.
In regards to ngmoco's recent push to "freemium" games, Smith said, "We wouldn't have done this if we didn't think there wasn't more growth and more possibilities to reach more people in the free to play model." He cites people (now teenagers) who have grown up playing high quality free flash games as well as the massive successes seen in Asian markets as proof that the free to play model works.
Ian seems open to all forms of free to play games currently, including a one-time purchase to unlock all the features and functionality of a game– Something often requested by forum members regarding ngmoco's TouchPets and Eliminate. Freeverse has no intention of "nickel and diming" gamers, and plans on just being smart about how these things are implemented.
While he was reluctant to comment on future game development, when asked if they were still going to provide substantial gameplay experiences for gamers to enjoy instead of Farmville-like games, Smith simply responded "Yes" and mentioned a "substantial game" being discussed behind the scenes.
Freeverse admits they have much to learn about the free to play world, but with the combined expertise of ngmoco, they hope to release compelling games that can be played at no cost to the player, while providing optional in-game purchases for players who spend hours a day playing. They're hoping this will result in games that see the same exponential growth that the iPhone in general has enjoyed, instead of the current linear growth patterns Freeverse sees now.
Prior to this recent acquisition by ngmoco, Freeverse has never had investors and has been profitable on their own for the last 15 years. According to Smith, the main motivation for agreeing to the purchase was to "swing for the fences" and feels we're at a major moment in time, an inflection point, where we're going to see an explosion of mobile gaming.
"At the end of the day, we are just trying to sell our games in a way that lets us grow and continue making more games," Smith explained.
We recommend listening to the entire interview yourself, which is included here.
Podcast music provided by .
Interview Audio: Subscribe in iTunes or Direct Download (M4A, 12.9MB)
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Apple’s "Our Newest Creation" Event – iPad Starting at $499
Freeverse’s ‘Hanged’ – A Curious Take on Hang Man
While I was in New York for EA's Naughty or Nice pre-holiday event, I made sure to swing down to the Freeverse offices to hang out with their crew and Mickey the office cat. At the time they had an extremely elaborate stop motion claymation set wedged firmly between the conference room and the Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball machine for a mysterious game in the works that was only vaguely described as based on hang man.
Hanged [] is the end product of countless hours of black, white, and red stop motion animation merged with the game of hang man, and the results are odd to say the least. You choose letters from droplets on the screen, which then roll to the bottom and the wind either blows the matching letter tile over, or you're faced with a short claymation clip which get even stranger the more letters you miss.
When a word is completed, it is revealed on a love letter presumably written by the couple you're attempting to save by solving these simple word puzzles. I'm not sure if I'd call Hanged a good game as much as it just is a curiosity of sorts. There are tons of hang man games on the App Store already, but none as weirdly ornate as this one.
I have a feeling there are going to be two distinct camps of people looking at this game: Those who look at the brief video, screenshots, and complex set used to create this game and truly appreciate it's bizarre charm… And those who look at those same things and scratch their head.
App Store Link:
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‘Driver’ – A Port Done Right
When Driver [] was originally released for the Playstation and PC way back in 1999, it was heralded by critics as a genuinely fun, challenging racing game. With the intense cop-chases, gang-centric story, and open-world exploration, Driver could be most easily described as "Grand Theft Auto without the on-foot parts." Flash forward to 2009, and Gameloft has just released their updated version of the game for the iPhone and iPod Touch via the App Store. Are slightly improved graphics, the addition of a much more tolerable difficulty level, and well-thought-out controls enough to make Driver a viable purchase for gamers, even 10 years later?
In Driver, you play as Tanner, a detective from New York who has been assigned a dangerous task: going undercover with the gangs that make up the criminal underbelly of New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. The "Undercover" mode serves as the single player campaign in the game and consists of about 40 missions. Missions do a good job of providing some decent variety in their structure; one minute you'll be attempting to keep up with a speedboat as it makes for an island hideout, the next you'll find yourself ramming into restaurants with the goal of busting up their glass fronts.
Driver isn't all about the story mode. There are numerous minigames, referred to as "Driving Games," on the game's main menu. In "Pursuit" you'll be tasked with chasing down another vehicle and dealing enough damage to take them out as quickly as possible. In "Getaway" you'll switch roles, attempting to evade and lose the trail of the police. Other minigames failed to catch my interest, like "Cross Town Checkpoint" or "Trailblazer", the latter of which involves randomly driving around knocking down 100 traffic cones.
Despite the weak first half of the "Driving Games" list, the second half of the minigame collection is much better and includes several fun games, my favorite of which being "Survival" mode. In Survival, players are brutally attacked by an unending legion of cop cars. The utmost skill in evasion techniques will be required in order to even stand a chance at lasting over a minute in this mode, and it makes for an extremely compacted session of what I consider to be the best parts of Driver. I also loved "Dirt Track" (a rally-style time trial game) and "Carnage" (an extremely fun mode that's very similar to the "crash" mode in the Burnout series).
Visually, Driver doesn't really hold up to other racing games on the App Store, but it comes close. The dated, PS1-era graphics benefited tremendously from the face lift that Gameloft gave them in this port, but the fact remains that there are better looking games on this platform. The worst part about Driver's visual style is undoubtedly the cutscenes, which are weirdly dark in an attempt to hide the unimpressive human 3D models in the game. At first, the constant use of darkness and shadows seems cool and stylish, but I quickly got tired of not being able to see anything in the cutscenes, losing almost all of my desire to watch them.
The audio in Driver is similarly disappointing, with what seems like only a few musical tracks that play themselves to death on your car's in-game radio, only interrupted by even fewer lines from the radio DJs. You'll hear the same tired jokes three-dozen times before you complete the full story mode in Driver, and if you're like me, you'll eventually just give up and turn off the noise altogether.
The most important part (arguably) of a vehicle-based game on the iPhone/iPod Touch are the controls. While I usually prefer accelerometer controls in such games (which Driver does indeed offer), I have to say that the on-screen touch controls that are set as the default control method in this game are some of the best on the platform. Trying them out for yourself is the best way to see what I mean by this, but the D-pad layout simply works; you'll forget you're playing on a device without any real, physical buttons to speak of.
In what may sound like a flaw but is actually a feature, the cop A.I. in Driver is completely nonsensical. Simultaneously vicious like wolves and stupid like sheep, police officers can be witnessed doing things worthy of national media attention about every 5 seconds in this game. The cops of Driver do not believe in the right to pull over and surrender oneself to the law; in their minds, the only way to stop crime is to ram into it repeatedly until it explodes.
Cops will work together in intelligent, inhuman fashion to slam you into a building at full speed, but when you put any sort of physical object in between yourself and them, prepare for fireworks. Driving around obstacles is just not an option for the fine officers in Driver. Instead, they will drive at full speed into civilians, trees, and even units of their own force in a desperate attempt to crush you with pure inertia. This makes for some of the most hilarious moments that I've had with a game in recent times, and I honestly think that Driver is a much better game for it.
There is no option to view replays in this version of Driver, and there is no multiplayer. If these two things were to be fixed in a future update, I would be absolutely in love with it, but even without that, this is an easy recommendation. The story mode is entertaining, but it's the great controls and supremely fun minigames that make Driver worth it. The game may have its flaws, but Gameloft has done a great job in making what could have been a quick and dirty port into a legitimately fun piece of software.
App Store Link
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