All Articles Tagged gaming

Everyone loves a big prize fight, whether it’s Tito Ortiz vs Chuck Lidell or Brock Lesnar vs Randy Couture or… the iPhone vs the PSP?!

With their recent “Let’s Rock” event, Apple made a huge play for the handheld gaming space, but can the iPhone really step into that Octagon and tap out the reigning champions?

Only time will really tell, but that won’t stop TiPb from taking a look at each device to see how they stack up. Round 1 starts with the Sony PSP… After the jump!

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Phone Saber was one of the most popular and talked about apps pretty much since the day Apple’s on-board store launched. Hey, turn your iPhone into a sound-a-like Star Wars lightsaber? What’s not to love?

Well, for THQ — exclusive Lucas licensor of all things Star Wars for all things Mobile — infringement for one. Too their credit, however, rather than just getting Apple to yank the App, THQ brought it onboard, and now they write in to tell us:

We are also [along with the Force Unleashed] relaunching a much bigger and improved Phone Saber Unleashed in September.

No word yet on availability or pricing (still FREE? It would be great publicity… just saying!) but this has got to be hitting every cross-geek squeal point in the system.

May the Phone Saber be with us (again) shortly!

Casey’s shown us the iControlPad already, but it looks like accessory heavyweight Belkin may be getting ready to throw a gaming controller of their own at the iPhone. According to TouchArcade, JoyPod would be a heck of a lot smaller than iControlPad (by covering the top and bottom, non-screen areas of the iPhone), and feature 6 front buttons (8 total), audio out, and a dock pass-through. Most importantly:

Belkin’s involvement certainly suggests that Apple will be building support into the official SDK to allow App Store games to take full advantage of these controllers.

Up until now, of course, gamers have pretty much been limited to accelerometer tilt and multi-touch based gaming on the iPhone using the accelerometer and tap/pinch/swipe screen interface, so no doubt those hungry for more traditional control schemes will welcome this news. However, since we haven’t seen anything that suggests Apple support for it in the still upcoming 2.1 firmware, JoyPod may not be landing anytime soon.

And that’s assuming Steve Jobs would ever authorize something with that many buttons…

We had mentioned the prototype of iControlPad more than a couple months ago, but it has popped up again looking a little bit more finalized and a lot BIGGER. Back in May, I had compared the original model to a PSP, but I think this edition looks more like the Sega Game Gear from years back. This thing is huge!

It promises to be glossier in the final production model and hopefully it’ll look a little bit nicer. Shouldn’t it look flush with the iPhone? At least steal some of the iPhone’s design cues! I will reserve my excitement and temper my expectations until I see the final product. Because even though it is kind of ugly, it might take iPhone gaming to another level.

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You know, you know: the iPhone ranks up there with the PSP for sheer gaming power, heck John Carmack has said it could even be in the same category as the PS2 or the Xbox. Carmack speaks out on the iPhone often enough that TiPb seems to have a full-on crush on the guy. One tidbit that we missed during his last talk comes to us via Apple Insider and it puts our pie-in-the-sky gaming hopes in the proper context:

The verdict is also out on whether Apple has a concrete grasp of gaming, the id co-founder said. The company’s reception to criticism has also been counterintuitive, which has led to its relationship with id being something akin to a roller-coaster ride.
Apple essentially kisses his ass when they need him to show up for one of Steve Jobs’ keynotes, but then throws him the cold shoulder the second he passes judgement, Carmack said.

Ouch. Here’s one way to get Apple to sit up and take notice, Carmack: deliver that ‘graphical tour-de-force’ for the iPhone you’ve been chatting up post haste. It’s a lot easier to get a company to kiss your ass when they can wipe it with $100 bills you’ve helped them earn. Just saying.

Meanwhile, the gaming potential of the iPhone is hitting the mainstream media, as Time Magazine profiles the various happenings on the gaming front. Coming soon: a genuine multiplayer-over-WiFi game (Asphalt 4) and, Spore Origins (SQUEEE!), featuring “18 levels of game play and an ‘Arena’ mode for competing with others around the globe.” We’ve all been waiting for Spore for so long now that we’re pretty sure that when it’s finally playable on the iPhone, we’ll be so enmeshed in the game for so long that actual evolution will likely occur on a massive scale without us noticing it.

First up, legendary id Software founder and Doom and Quake mastermind John Carmack spoke to Forbes about iPhone gaming:

“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.

Lastly, Gizmodo shows some video of the updated NES emulator (for jailbroken iPhone’s and iPod Touch) which adds accelerometer support for increased gaming goodness.

Me thinks iPhone gamers are going to see an amazing second wave of software in the coming months.

As gaming developers grow more familiar with the iPhone platform and learning its capabilities, many are doling out their opinions across the interweb. Compared to the DS and the PSP, an EA developer put the iPhone in terms of power closer to the PSP than the DS. That’s nothing new for us at TiPb but now Sega is claiming that the iPhone is more powerful than their last console, the Dreamcast! To remind you: the Dreamcast was home to Soul Caliber, Shenmue, & Virtua Tennis and the console was a competitor of the PS2 and Xbox.

And. the. iPhone. is. more. powerful. than. that.

But powerful as it is, as proven by the current console war, the iPhone is going to need FUN games to succeed as a gaming platform. Let’s give developers some time to see what they can come up with. With such power under the hood, they’ll have no excuse!

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Hmm. Megan Fox in retro Star Wars chic, hawt she is. But iPhone 3G with latest CGI, rocks it does!

Okay, while I may personally still be waiting for my Battlefront Touch, and accelerometer X-Wing dogfights, Star Wars: the Force Unleashed from THQ brings plenty of lightsaber and force-powered goodness:

the battles can grow enjoyably hectic as you block fire and toss your enemies aside. And it’s all promised to be backed by the same soundtrack we’ll hear in the Xbox/PS3 versions of the Force Unleashed (we just heard placeholder music during our hands-on). Oh, and something really cool. You can rotate the game between portrait and landscape mode. Neither gave the characters the stretched look.

Available September it will be. Check Gizmodo for the screenshots… you must.

Ubisoft, the publisher of game series such as Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and Prince of Persia, is reportedly very interested in developing games for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Pauline Jacquey, Executive Producer of Ubisoft’s “Games for Everyone” recently said,

“At the minute, we’re only showing DS and Wii games, but we’ll be working on all other platforms. We’ll be making games not only on PC, PS3 and 360, but on iPhone and iPod touch as well.”

Ubisoft may be waiting to see how well EA and Sega develop real games for the iPhone and what kind of market there will be for iPhone gaming before jumping in. But no worries Ubisoft, as we stated on TiPb many times before, we love iPhone gaming. And none of us ever want to go back to that mobile version junk.

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Are you guys familiar with BioShock? It was an amazing first person shooter that released for the Xbox 360 and PC. As one of the best games of 2007, it created a beautiful story through deep emotional connection and stunning visuals. And guess what. It’s coming to the iPhone.

Yes, that’s not a typo. It hasn’t even been ported to a portable gaming machine yet but it is coming to the iPhone. Who knows how well it can translate to a mobile device, but this shows how much faith developers have in the iPhone. Note: A 2D version is also going to be released for mobile devices that can’t handle the full 3D Game. I’m looking at you Blackberry. =)

I couldn’t find a video for you guys but folks are saying that it looks spectacular. No one has actually given gameplay a twirl yet so the controls can’t be spoken for, but the video shown to a few insiders was rendered on the iPhone itself.

So who’s NOT excited about gaming on the iPhone?

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