All Articles in Games

Electronic Arts’ Command and Conquer: Red Alert [$9.99 - iTunes link] is now ready to go to war on your iPhone or iPod touch.

You can fight as the Allies or Soviets, through 12 combat levels in skirmish mode or on two battle maps. Upcoming updates will include free multiplayer over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and an Empire of the Sun expansion pack.

If you check it out, let us know what you think!

[Thanks fvc625 for the tip!]

(Card Ninja Forum Review. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Card Ninja – just the name conjures up interesting ideas as to what the iPhone (and iPod touch) game might be. As it turns out, the ideas may not be that far from the truth.

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Earthworm Jim [$4.99 - iTunes link], an iPhone and iPod touch remake of the classic Sega and Nintendo game of the same name, has just landed in the App Store.

Confession: I was a huge Earthworm Jim fan back in the day. The animation sold me instantly, and that animation looks just as good on the iPhone. I’m downloading it now. If anyone else gives it a try, especially old-school fans, let us know what you think.

Ramp Champ [$1.99 - iTunes link] is a skee-ball-like, old school boardwalk arcade or amusement park-style game for the iPhone and iPod touch. Co-developed by the Iconfactory and DSMediaLabs, it’s also gorgeous. Of course, I’d expect no less from the pixel perfectionists behind it (and behind other well-loved apps like Twitterrific and Frenzic).

The premise is simple: using your finger and the iPhone’s multi-touch screen, you flick balls up a ramp and try to hit targets, win trophies, score points, get tickets, and redeem those tickets for prizes. The art is sublime, from the included Clown Town, Breakwater, Spaceswarm, and Icon garden to the in-app purchasable add-on packs like the Ninja Attack and Tiki Island combo ($0.99 each). Other add-ons currently include Voyage, Halloween, and Challenge. This part of the app is implemented particularly well, and there’s even a “restore purchases” button should you even need to re-download the add-ons.

In-jokes abound for the attentive as well. Developer Ged Maheux points out the classic icon sizes 16, 32, 48, 64, 128, etc. used as ticket cost for the prizes. And, of course, the first prize I bought was the Twitterrific blue bird itself.

There are three “goals” to each ramp. The first one tends towards the easy, a cookie to reward us for playing. The second and third range from difficult to how-the-frak-do-I-do-this. (Obvious tip: try to time your shots so that you hit more than one target with each ball). That you can often get close works only to make it more frustrating and addictive to play.

The frustrating part may be a double-edged sword, however. Sometimes flicking the ball seems absolutely intuitive and under your complete control, and sometimes it seems like there’s no rhyme or reason to where the ball goes relative to how you flick. In the real world, and number of quirks in a ramp could account for chaotic end results. On the iPhone, it might just be a matter of tweaking the physics engine a bit more.

All-in-all, it’s a beautiful, engaging, casual time-filler of a game, perfect for occupying interstitial moments. As a test, however, I gave it to an 11-year old to try out. I only got it back an hour and half later. So, yeah, it works for a wide range of players and time constraints as well.

If you give Ramp Champ a go, let us know how how many goals you get, and which prizes you pick up.

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Rock Band from EA is coming to the iPhone and iPod touch and Mashable has the details:

Just as is the case with the original, Rock Band for iPhone offers four different instruments that you can play: vocals, drums, bass, guitar. Each option offers a game experience that is unique to each instrument, so you’re playing the actual drum part when you select “drums,” and so on.

Should you sync up with friends and play over Bluetooth, be prepared to be blown away. The real-time gaming experience is incredible, as yours truly can attest to, and even goes so far as to highlight other players’ activities on your device as they happen.

Head on over to the link above for me info and screenshots. They think it’s “awesome”. What do you think?

Updated: It’s here! TapTap Revenge 3 [$0.99 - iTunes link]

One of the most popular games in iPhone (and iPod touch) history is about to raise the bar again as Tapulous has just announced Tap Tap Revenge 3. What’s new the third time around?

First, they’ll have 40 song bundles from major artists available to purchase in-app at launch, along with custom themes for each. Next, they’ll have an online mode with bombs, weapons, chat, PMs, and more. Customizable avatars are on tap, with achievements and levels, as well as an overall look refresh and performance enhancements.

There will be over 100 free tracks for download as well, along with new free and paid tracks released weekly.

Pricing is $0.99 for the app (Apple doesn’t allow in-app purchase for free apps), with $2.99 6-track bundle and $0.99 2-track bundle options. Availability, of course, depends on when exactly Apple sees fit to release it into the App Store.

We’re hoping for soon.

More screen shots and complete artist list after the break!

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Ngmoco sent us word of new teasers for Eliminate, the first-person iPhone (and iPod touch) shooter they showed off on Apple’s Keynote stage for iPhone 3.0. Now, I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of the teaser concept. Rather than build interest, I find they just cause me to tune out after a while. Literally, too much of a good thing.

However, Eliminate really is looking to be a good thing, if not a great thing, so I’m posting the one video so far that makes us really, really want them to get this game out. See, to me the fun in Golden Eye and Halo was never the game. It was hunting down and picking off my friends. Now, if they can ever get live streaming audio to work in real time with the game, and I can hear my friends complain that “it’s not fair” their “controller doesn’t work” and “stop killing me the moment I re-spawn” (okay, those are all actually things I say to them. Shhh!) it would be perfect. But given that it will push challenges and let you play over 3G and WiFi, and using ngmoco’s plus+ network, it could just be dang near perfect.

Now I just have to make sure Chad and Jeremy never get my gamer code…

It’s no secret that the Apple App Store is just flooded with games and entertainment titles – 21,178 to be exact.

As impressive as that number may sound, however, there is an old saying that says quality over quantity. Now don’t get us wrong, there are very impressive games that have hit the App Store but we think developers are just beginning to scratch the surface of the power of Apple devices. When the App Store was first introduced many developers just rushed to put apps together in a effort to simply cash in with some subpar apps. As time goes on we are seeing more and more impressively polished games arrive in the store.

Games such as EA’s Madden 2010, Assassins Creed 2 from Ubisoft (available November 11th), and a FPS called Nova from Gameloft are just a taste of what’s to come.

So we ask the big question to you, does Apple raise a serious threat to the likes of Sony and Nintendo? What are you using these days to get your game on?

C64 ($4.99 – iTunes link], a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone (and iPod touch) is now available from the App Store, despite having been previously rejected by Apple. FCC spotlight? Phil Schiller intervention? Simple change of heart? Sounds more like a slight change of code, says the C64 blog:

Ultimately, BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it.

(If you’re dying to get your BASIC on, however, reader Stooovie let us know you can still access it by enabling “always show full keyboard”, starting a game, paging over to the EXTRA keyboard, and then tapping RESET. Boom, dropped into BASIC with a ready-prompt — though we clearly don’t remember enough C64 BASIC to see if it actually does anything or just sits there blinking. Commenters?)

But, as they say, who cares about BASIC, C64’s focus is games and it ships with Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck and Jack Attack. More games will be available in the future (via in-app purchase, we believe).

The interface is gorgeous, the passion level obviously high, and the C64 is a classic (as is the Amiga, cough, want-it-next, cough), so for fans of any of those qualities — or more likely all of them — check it out and let us know what you think.

Demo video and more screen shots after the break!

[Thanks Stooovie for the tip!]

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(Bookworm for iPhone Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

I have said it before, I will take it again, I am not a huge fan or word games. But occasionally one will come along that captures my attention. Bookworm [$2.99 - iTunes link] is just such a game.

The premise is simple – you are presented with a field of letter tiles. You need to go through spelling words with connecting tiles. As words are spelled, those tiles vanish, and new tiles fall from the top to replace them. Throw in features like bonus works, green tiles (for more points), red tiles (that “burn” through the others to the bottom) and you have the game Bookworm.

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