When Steve Jobs uttered the statement that “Now you can make a pretty good argument that the [iPod Touch/iPhone] is the best portable device for playing games on”, did you nod your head in unison? I have my money on you saying no—the iPhone is a great device, to be sure, but a gaming device? Leave that to Nintendo you probably thought.
Why? Because the Nintendo DS has sold close to 80 million units since its inception. The numbers speak for themselves, the Nintendo DS is the king of portable gaming. So what would it take for the iPhone to knock the DS off of its throne? Well, that’s what we are here to tell you.
Read on to see how the iPhone can take on the Nintendo DS!
Have you checked out our forums lately? The community is growing and the commentary is getting better and better each day. Unconvinced? I’ll bring out a thread, a post, a topic, or a comment directly from the forums and post it on TiPb’s front page every week to prove it to you. We here at TiPb love the interplay, quid pro quo, repartee with our readers, so step up your creativity and tighten up your diction, you could be next!
This week we have a great and interesting thread going on in our forums. CharlieBall asks when did your iPhone make your life easier? Obviously, we all know that the iPhone is a multipurpose tool that’s the best iPod, best internet device, etc. but what about those little, less important times where the iPhone just made your life easier? The current answers range from trivia questions to phone saber battles, directions to movie times. So, when has the iPhone helped you out?
For me, I always Shazam songs that play on the radio and play games to kill the dead time. How about you?
Enigmo is a 3D puzzle-based game for the iPhone developed by Pangea Software that has been met with rave reviews, even earning a “Best iPhone Game” at WWDC 08. The basic premise is to put water droplets in the water container, oil droplets in the oil container, and lava droplets in the lava container using the specific materials given to you. The materials can range from sponges, springs, slides, or even laser guns and it uses basic physics to determine where each droplet will land.
Enigmo is already a popular game on the Mac, but does it translate to the iPhone? Is it worth your $9.99? How does it perform?
“We wanted to do something for the iPhone, but we just didn’t have the scheduling or the resources available. I really regret not having something at launch. We have a title we want to develop exclusively for iPhone. I’m not announcing anything specifically, but it would be a graphical tour de force.”
id clarifies it will be an existing property, and Carmack goes on to say the iPhone is Xbox or PS2 class when it comes to power, a little lighter on the graphics, but a lot heavier on the RAM, and when (and if) the business model makes sense, he could easily see spending $10M on developing an iPhone game.
Next up, TUAW covers the Torque Game Engine and its recent release for the iPhone. Torque would sit on top of the OpenGL ES system and help developers create better graphical experiences faster via their Game Builder software.
Next up: a review from iPhoneMilk: Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s a very well made game and (surprise!) it’s developed by none other than Apple, Inc. You can but it on iTunes for just $4.99.
Hello everyone this will be my first review of an iPhone app, More reviews are to come to stay tuned =)
First off, What’s the App?- Texas Hold’em!
This is a must buy for you poker fans! I myself often love to go out and play poker in real person and I always try out the occasional poker game for any device/pc just to see what it’s like, but this game has me coming back for more!
I am a big Bejeweled fan, and I love similar games. Trism bring that idea to a whole new level.
Instead of having block, or sqaures, or jewels, trism simply has colored triangles. The trick is, however, you can move a row of colored triangle any direction (along a row). You can move a row to try to get three matching colors together – if you don’t, the row “snaps back” to the starting position. The rows wrap around, so if a triangle goes off the screen on one side, it reappears on the other side of the screen.
Reason number 4952 (ok, we lost count) we’re excited for the iPhone 2.0 software update: Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. Yes, it’s pretty much just a MarioKart Klone — but it looks like a quality clone and, let’s be brutally honest here, the chances that Nintendo is going to develop for the iPhone when they have a perfectly good and popular portable out there is precisely nil.
Looks like you steer with the accelerometer, tap the screen to shoot your powerups, and use your voice to giggle with glee. Next step (we hope): networked multiplayer. Pretty Please?
You’ll probably hear from a lot of people who attended WWDC that the app demo section of the keynote was much too long and even :gasp: boring. But the games showcased at WWDC continue to prove that the iPhone is going to be a force in mobile gaming.
Super Monkey Ball - First shown in the March Event, Sega has expanded on Super Monkey Ball including over a 100 levels and four classic Monkeys. The graphics in Super Monkey Ball for iPhone is on par with anything from the DS.
Enigmo - A physics based game using reflectors to put water in a bucket. Ported in three days, looks like frustratingly mindless fun.
Cro-Mag Rally - A racing game using the iPhone’s accelerometer as a steering wheel. Nine different tracks, 10 unique cars and looks really fun. That too was ported over in three days.
Digital Legends Entertainment – They demoed a 3D fantasy game that displayed the graphical prowess of the iPhone. It probably didn’t reach the high end level of PSP but it only took two weeks to develop. Available sometime in September.
The games are priced at $9.99 and available through the AppStore. After paying similar prices for Texas Hold ‘Em on my old cell phones, I think these would be easy purchases. What do you think?
Before we hit the sure-to-be-craziness of WWDC, TiPb has some definite house cleaning to do. Meaning lucky for you readers, more roundups! With Rene handling everyrounduppossible forthe iPhone 3Gand beyond I thought it’d be a great time to focus on the device we’ve all been unconsciously neglecting: the iPhone!
Every few weeks, I’ll present you with a quick list of web apps, native apps, and games that should tie up any loose ends that we might have missed. Click on each link to learn more about the program and be sure to mention your experience in the comments or forums. Before we start, with the iPhone 3G just mere days away, make sure you participate in TiPb’s Wait-A-Thon-Tastic and give yourself a chance to win a FREE iPhone 3G!
