Category: Games

iOS Game Reviews

March 18, 2011

It’s hard not to take iOS (including iPods, iPhones and iPads) seriously as a gaming platform these days. Thousands of games exist or are being made. They are getting increasingly more impressive and complex, and millions of dollars is being made. The iPad2 surpasses the PS2 in performance, and I believe it’s only a matter of time before iOS will surpass (in revenue) one of the ‘big three’ console platforms (Wii, PS3 and XBox) – unless it already has?

All that said here are a few comments on the iOS games I have found myself playing the most. All screenshots are full-resolution and taken directly from my iPad.

Infinity Blade ($5.99)

If you are into gaming at all, you have likely heard of this game. Using the Unreal 3D engine, it’s leagues beyond almost everything else on the device in terms of graphics., and the gameplay is damn good as well. Basically it is a rip-off of my own game franchise Mercenary King, which means you fight baddies one at a time to get loot and power up your character. It all culminates in a face-off with the God-King that (spoiler!) always ends in defeat (even if you beat him!). The game then continues with your progeny starting his own fight through the castle. In this way you can play forever, becoming increasingly stronger and fighting bigger and badder enemies whilst collecting more and powerful gear.

Combat consists of dodging, parrying, attacking or using special abilities or magic – all controlled by very intuitive and clever touch controls. This is a top tier game, well designed and executed, and a no-brainer for anyone with a device that can play it.

Angry Birds ($2.99)

Since everyone on Earth including the US president and the British prime-minister has played this game what could I say you don’t know? Basically this is a one-two punch: a very clever and addicting game design coupled with near perfect implementation. The ultimate game I suppose, and less than three dollars! Another no-brainer purchase. (Screenshots from the HD ‘Seasons’ version)

Battleheart ($2.99)

This charming game is an RTS with great graphics, nifty controls and a good amount of customization. Assemble your team of four characters (from many different classes) and fight off waves of enemies as best you can. Each character feels quite different and the game even has synergies to consider when creating your team. It’s quite tricky, and with many levels to play through (and a lot of equipment to collect and use) there is a great deal of game here for the small price. This very professional product is highly recommended to anyone that likes RPGs or strategy games of any kind.

Cave Bullet Hell Shooters

Read that again if you’re in shock: I speak the truth. Cave – makers of the best arcade shooters of all time – have already ported two of their greats to the iPhone. Those would be Espgaluda II (left screen) and Dodonpachi Resurrection (right screen). They are incredibly good – far, far better than one would expect with touch controls. The action is fast and furious and the graphics and sound are great. However there is a problem: they are each pricey ($9) and iPhone only, which is why the screens are pixellated (the graphics are blown up for the iPad screen). The screens are from the free demos: I haven’t yet purchased the games because I think high-res iPad versions are a matter of time.

Minotron 2112 ($1.99)

Ignore anything else I say and just go and buy it. (If you insist for a review, I trust these three words are sufficient: “Better than Llamatron.“)

Two last points:

1) Note how low those prices are? I’m torn about this. Yes it means cheap games for everyone, and as I have hopefully shown here cheap does not necessarily mean bad (or short, or simplistic). On the other hand one wonders what effect such pricing will have on the game industry as a whole? I certainly think the days of $40+ niche or experimental games may already be behind us, which saddens me a little.

2) I don’t yet have an iPad2. This is for lack of trying, since I’ve made no real effort to go to the store after launch day to get one. Rest assured the day I walk past an Apple store and they are in stock one will instantly be mine. And not just for gaming: I consider my iPad an indispensable tool and the improvements in the upgraded model make it a no-brainer purchase for me.

One more final last point, specifically directed at B Francis S:

3) The graphic effects in the two Minter games (Minotron and Minotaur Rescue) will make you cry with delight. The particles in the Minotaur Rescue menu screen! The phosphor trails in Minotron (viewable in the upper right screen)! Once you see these in action you’ll want to get an iPad just to buy the dev kit and start porting over your flame demos to make them interactive 🙂

Game Crazy

March 8, 2011

Last Friday we visited the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. This is a new section of the museum devoted to video and electronic gaming. It opened last November and I first heard of it only a couple of weeks ago. The website promised a comprehensive collection and I was not to be disappointed.

There it is – the first ‘console game’. The brown box is one of the Odyssey prototypes invented by Ralph Baer in the late 1960s. This simple device started it all, and we were able to play it last Friday.

The collection is divided into a few sections, the most dramatic of which is the arcade:

These are all originals in their original cabinets with mostly original screens, controllers and circuitry. I spoke with an attendant and he told me many of them had such things as new power supplies or coin slot systems, but of the 25 or so games on display (from a collection of nearly 200) the emphasis was on those games that were as close as possible to how they were in the 1980s.

I’d played them all of course, aeons ago, and it was like stepping back in time being able to do so again (at the mere cost of $0.16 per game!). I was particularly amazed by the working Asteroids, Star Wars and Lunar Lander since all three use vector displays, which are notoriously prone to failure.

We spent quite a bit of time at the arcade burning through 30 tokens (1 per game), but it turns out the true star of this collection was not the old games, but was the simply astounding collection of game history on display in the many cases. Such as:

Bet you’ve never seen one of them before? What about this one:

Note how the games are built in-to the unit (which was released in 1972). Of course slightly more modern game systems were represented as well:

And not just consoles:

This was all well and good (very good actually). But the collection truly lives up to its mandate of electronic gaming (as opposed to TV or console gaming). Which means, well all sorts of electronic games. Think LCD, VFD and everything between. It was in viewing many of these objects that my mind was truly blown:

Note the original boxes for many of the items.

“If only”, did I think many times, “could that be mine.”

Many of the displays were themed (educational games, sports games, simulation games etc.) and in the role-playing game section (which spanned from the board game Dark Tower [which we own by the way] to World Of Warcraft) was this pair on display:

The most important books every written perhaps? 🙂

The articles on display were only a tiny fragment of the entire collection, but I was very impressed with the choices which ranged from obscure to common, from American to English to Japanese. As I told the attendant, up until last Friday I may have supposed my own personal collection was the only one in America to contain both a Wonder Swan and a Wonder Swan Color:

And it got more obscure than this. How about the FM Towns version of one of the Japanese-only Dungeon Master sequels? Yes, that was on display 🙂

Needless to say, this now-permanent exhibit is highly recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in the history of electronic gaming. I feel privileged that it is so close to my house, and given that the curators plan to improve both the content and size of the display I have no doubt I shall return one day to be amazed all over again.

Strong museum is also home to many other collections of toy and gaming-related material, many of which are on display. Here are a few random shots of some of what we saw:

Yes my friends, that is a collection of Star Trek themed Yo-Yo’s. They actually had many more on show, including much of the cast of Deep Space Nine…

The above is unquestionably the cutest Jack-in-the-Box in the history of human civilization. It even has the word Love written on it!

And this last shot…? It almost defies description, so I shall just label it with the proper name. The following shot depicts a squirrel whimsy.

Buy Low, Sell High

February 24, 2011

I have only ever sold two things on eBay. The first was a digital camera (our first ever, a Kodak that took VGA quality images). I recall getting a good price for it considering it was a couple of years old. What about the second thing I sold? Well…

A little over 10 years ago, I walked into a local store called FYE in one of the malls here in Albany. They were in their post-Christmas clearance and I was digging through their goods. Imagine my surprise when I saw they were selling entire, unopened boxes of Japanese Final Fantasy VIII trading cards. Here’s a shot of one of the packs:

There were discounted to a near-unbelievably level, something like sub-$10 per box (although a part of me wants to say they may have even been only $1 per box). Needless to say, I purchased all three boxes they had – which translated to maybe 75 packs of cards in total.

So I took them all home and tore them all open. The pack was a lie! The contents were almost exclusively ‘official card game’ and not much at all of ‘perfect visual collection’. In essence, this was a real-life version of the Triple Triad card game included in Final Fantasy VIII.

Oh well, they were very cheap, so I didn’t care much. I sorted, extracted as close to a full set as I could, and set aside all of my doubles.

Now here’s where things get weird. Often, with card doubles, I just throw them in a box somewhere and attic them, or even discard them. Recently I’ve been known to give my doubles away (often to my brother). For some reason, back in 2001, I decided to put these doubles on eBay since I had just had some luck selling the camera.

Unfortunately eBay doesn’t save data for ever, so I couldn’t look up the auction as it was, but I do have some information myself. Here is the photo I placed in the auction:

I know I would have started the sale at $0.00 (since you had to then to avoid a listing fee) and I doubt I set a reserve (again, to avoid a fee). The auction was probably set at the default of seven days. I don’t remember the listing, although I know I stressed that the piles at the back contained many doubles and all the foils contained in the auction were shown at front.

Interest was immediate, and very high. Recall I paid virtually nothing for these cards (maybe $30, maybe $3) and I had already removed a good portion for myself. I truly considered them to be near-worthless. Had they not sold, I certainly would have simply thrown them all away.

So seven days later, when the auction closed with a winning bid of $293.50 I was astounded. I recall skepticism; suspicion it was a fake bid. But it was not, and I eventually got the money in the mail and sent off the cards. I reckon I danced for joy when I cashed that cheque!

These days the cards still hold value, especially since the game is still being played by enthusiasts. A few days ago when I considered this post there was a ‘buy it now’ on the full set of 182 cards on eBay for a (shocking!) $475, but that auction seems to be gone now. My cards are in deep storage somewhere so I have no idea how much of the set I have. But to think they are worth hundreds of dollars? That’s just crazy!

Robot Claw