(Not one, but two premiere game reviews on TiPb today. If you haven’t already checked out the review of Spore for the iPhone, go get your evolution on!)
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Mobile) for the iPhone by THQ Wireless is available for $9.99 via the iTunes App Store. Alongside Spore, it’s one of the highest profile games released so far for the “funnest iPod (and iPhone) ever”.
Now, Star Wars was the first movie I remember seeing in the theater (which, yes, makes me old and tells you something about how big a deal actually going to a movie theater was in the days before PPV, torrentz, and home cinema!) I had a lot of the toys. I played a lot of the video games, from the early Nintendo fare that drove the sound track so far into overuse I still cringe when I hear Jawa, to the truly epic Battlefront II on the original Xbox. I even have had the prequels Jedi-mind-tricked out of my consciousness (”not the Star Wars you were looking for…”)
So yes, Star Wars is in my DNA every bit as much as Apple. Put them together and — even absent Megan Fox — and The Force Unleashed pretty much had me at announce. But would it hold me? Does THQ deliver Empire-class sizzle, or Phantom-style fizzle?
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!
Tuesday’s “Let’s Rock” event brought a sneak-peak of Gameloft’s latest iPhone (and iPod Touch) offering, Real Soccer/Football 2009. Well, it’s now available via iTunes App Store, and according to Gameloft:
This dynamic game takes advantage of the iPhone’s touch screen allowing players to pull off spectacular moves with the touch of a fingertip. There are almost 200 teams available to play and real player names, tournaments and exhibition games and a soon to be introduced multiplayer feature.
Apple’s pushing OS X Touch as the “funnest” mobile gaming platform yet, which is market speak for wanting it in more markets. With accessories like the gaming pad on the horizon, the already 100 million in sales is only the beginning.
Sure, the PSP (see our iPhone vs. PSP article for more!) and DS dominance won’t be going anywhere any time soon, but Apple’s combination of communications (with the iPhone) and media and data management present considerable differentiation and appeal all their own.
And for Apple, at this point it means gaming is all gravy.
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!
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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!
