Need another reason to justify your purchase of a frivolous iPad? Pop Cap Games shows us just how valuable the iPad touchscreen surface is for gaming in a demo of Plants Vs. Zombies HD.
Apparently, the iPad can handle 11 simultaneous points of contact, which is perfect for the man with six fingers on his right hand. Or if you’re into playing games with friends and stuff, this makes for some great multiplayer action. Imagine 11-way air hockey, or 11-way Hungry Hungry Hippos. Which reminds me, when is the board game Crossfire coming to the App Store?
This is the cutest game demo video I have ever seen. It’s almost as cute as the trailer for Babies.
With the addition of the Xbox-Live-like Game Center to iPhone OS 4.0, Apple has finally made a serious commitment to gamers and game developers after nearly a decade of ignoring them on the OS X platform.
Expect that commitment to continue to deepen: Nintendo games expert and journalist Matt Casmassina of IGN has just been hired by Apple as their new Global Editorial Games Manager.
“Anybody who has read my work through the years will know that I’ve long been a huge Nintendo fan, but if there is one company that could entice me away from covering Mario and Zelda it’s the one owned by Steve Jobs. Beginning early May, I will join Apple as global editorial games manager, App Store,” Casamassina wrote on his blog.
Steam for Mac is finally available in private beta form, bringing the popular gaming delivery system to OS X for the first time.
It’s looking pretty good compared to the PC version, although that charcoal color scheme is as dreadful as ever, and like most of the initial forays into Mac software development made by PC guys, the UI’s not quite up to Snow Leopard snuff.
None the less, Steam for Mac looks good enough and seems to work pretty well. I’m really excited about this: I really think a good delivery platform is exactly what is needed to galvanize more serious OS X game development.
If you’re itching to Zerg Rush with the Windows world, great news coming from Blizzard: the beta to their sequel to the award-winning and still wildly popular space RTS, Starcraft II, will be coming to Macs next week.
It’s a bit belated, since Blizzard released the Starcraft II beta for PC users over two months ago, but welcome all the same. Blizzard is one of the few game developers who take releasing native OS X ports of their games seriously… a strategy which is looking increasingly prescient as Mac marketshare soars.
Think you can do a better job running a 3G network than AT&T. Here’s your chance to prove it: Telecom Tycoon HD is a mobile broadband network sim for the iPad that allows you to roll-out a 2G, 3G and LTE network across a virtual city.
Looking for something to play this weekend? The amazing rogue-like RPG, Sword of Fargoal for the iPhone and iPod Touch is free to download for today only. I bought it for $4.99 a month ago, and it was worth every penny.
Fargoal going free is serendipitous, since this is an especially good time to grab the game: a new patch adding a chunk of new content is imminent, and the developers have been firmly committed to not just expanding the existing game, but evolving it in fresh new ways as well.
Utterly fantastic. Joypad is an iPhone app that operates as a virtual, touch-controlled gaming pad for emulators on your Mac. All you do is run a free helper program under OS X, launch the iPhone app and you’re ready to crush some Koopas. It seems to work pretty well, and at $2, is cheaper than even the most remedial USB pad you can find. You may not be able to play emulated games on your iPhone, but that’s not to say you can’t control them.
There’s no shortage of ways to kill zombies on the iPhone. Blast them in the head with a shotgun, gobble them up with a venus flytrap, or hit them with a car. Even so, Meridian Digital Entertainment’s Smash TV like, Alive 4-Ever, was one of the more satisfying ways to blow apart fetid corpse flesh around… and the upcoming sequel, Alive 4-Ever Returns, while out-stupiding the naming paradigm of its predecessor, looks even better with its new graphics engine, zombies, skills, power-ups, weapons and environmental effects. It should be available later this month.
One of the great things about the App Store is how it’s leveled the game development playing field: for the first time since the late 80s, a single developer coding in his bedroom can be competitive both graphically and presentationally with larger developers.
Case in point: Brainphant’s Vertigo Rogue, an action game that literally came out of nowhere and is to helicopters what Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was to cars. Not only does it feature intuitive controls, a huge, detailed 3D city and frenetic blow-em-all-up action, but Brainphant even programmed in stereoscopic 3D glasses support. You know, like James Cameron used.
At $4.99, Brainphant’s Vertigo Rogue is looking like a strong contender for my weekend time sink. If you need more convincing, check out Touch Arcade’s spot-on review.
All hell breaks loose as my chain-tooth equipped arrow rips into those wretched dots; note the hardly impressive 2.5-million high-score.
Most people on this planet do something in order to live. Some catch bad guys, some heal — others yet write pithy reviews about tiny games.
A relatively new game has another suggestion, by dint of its title: “Tilt To Live.” If you do wind up with this little $2 gem in your hot hands, though, you’ll find it usurps any other activity you might have been engaged with in order to live.
Last week, I wrote about an upcoming bullet hell SHMUP from Cave called ESPGALUDA II due to hit the App Store last Saturday. As promised, it did, and at a special low introductory price of $4.99 to boot.
Unfortunately, though, ESPGALUDA II came with some big problems.
For one, it would only run on the iPhone 3Gs or iPad. Even worse? Due to a developer error, third generation iPod Touches like mine were inexplicably incapable of running the game, even though the hardware supports it. This put iPod Touch owners in a nasty position: they either dropped five bucks on the ESPGALUDA II app now and hoped an update came along soon to fix the install problem, or waited for the fix and risk paying an extra four bucks for the game later.
If you’re a SHMUP-loving iPod Touch 3rd Gen owner, though, don’t despair. There’s an easy way to get ESPGALUDA II running on your device right now. Just follow the instructions below.
They’re called bullet hell SHMUPS (shoot-em-ups): Galaga style arcade shooters where enemies puke so many bright bad bullets at you that surviving even for a few seconds requires muscle memory down to the pixel… and Cave’s one of the most devious development houses out there at creating them.
Consider me more than impressed, though, by this video from Cave, demonstrating their upcoming iPhone port of ESPGALUDA II. You wouldn’t think a SHMUP requiring pixel-perfect positioning would work on the iPhone, but it’s amazing how good the controls here look.
According to Cave, ESPGALUDA II will be released on Saturday and cost $4.99. Considering beating a game this difficult at the arcades would cost you a couple grand in quarters, that’s a steal: for an unabashedly clumsy and inept SHMUP fan like me, that’s basically like buying a game and getting a MacBook Pro for free.
You won’t see this on the App Store anytime soon, since Nintendo would pretty much throw a conniption fit, but here’s Super Mario Kart running gorgeously on the iPad through the glories of emulation.
The emulator’s from ZodTTD, who has previously done iPhone’s SNES and N64 emulators. All we need to do now is just wait for the iPad jailbreak to mosey along and we’ll be racing Yoshi and fighting Gannon with the rest of the non-Apple tablet world.
It’s April 3rd weekend, which means a good number of you will be trying out some of the first iPad games to hit the App Store. I, living in Germany, am not be so lucky: my own iPad won’t be delivered until some still unknown date in the farther-flung days of April. Instead, I’m still stuck gaming on my iPhone, but luckily, I’ve got one of the best and hardest-core games on the App Store to entertain me this weekend: Sword of Fargoal.
From Think Geek comes the one April Fools joke that I really wish was real: the iCade. Bringing all your 1970s and 80s gaming memories back to life. In theory anyway.
Seen any other good April 1st gags while browsing around this morning?
I didn’t see too many, I was too busy transferring all my files over to my new Windows 7 machine. It’s incredible!
If you’d told me yesterday that I’d be eagerly anticipating a new release by nu metal doofus band Linkin Park, I would have promptly puked up my entire central nervous system… but today, I’m holding my stomach, keeping my mouth closed and my nostrils pinched shut, because Linkin Park’s upcoming iPhone game doesn’t just look good… it looks fantastic.
Perhaps what’s so great about Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion is that it somehow manages to cater to both Linkin Park fans (a blight on the species which makes a strong argument for eugenics) and those who find the band’s metal-and-rap-for-fratties musical style nauseating in equal measure. It’s a game with a sense of humor about its subject, not exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from Linkin Park.
The game pits the members of Linkin Park in 16-bit pixel art glory, battling an infection of 8-bit sprites with fun weapons ranging from flamethrowers to super lasers. Even better: Linkin Park’s oeuvre of unlistenable audiophonic vomit is taken and distilled until each song has become a fun, warbling chiptune, which you can choose to listen to instead. Excellent!
Even Linkin Park haters like me should check out the trailer above: this may be the iPhone game I’m looking forward to most right now, god help me.
Eager to plunge your Companion Cube through a gravity-defying dimensional riff in pursuit of the ephemeral promise of imaginary cake? Dying to invisibly sneak up on a sandwich-munching Heavy and slide a butterfly knife between his vertrebrae? Have a zombie-killing date scheduled with three buddies in New Orleans’ French district? Want to do all of it on your Mac?
Well, good news! Valve Software’s games delivery service, Steam, is now accepting Mac beta testers. It’s easy to sign up: all you need to do is go to the page and log in with your Steam user name and password. A quick poll and system check later, and you’ll be officially entered.
I’ve entered, and so should you: perhaps a Cult of Mac Left 4 Dead II multiplayer night is in our future later this month.
This week hasn’t heralded any major App Store gaming releases, so this weekend, in the wake of the inamorata’s shamelessly bragged-about decimation of my all-time high score, I’ll be revisiting an old iPhone favorite: GeoSpark ($1.99) by Critical Thought Games.
Star Wars titles on the iPhone tend to be bog-standard, lightsaber-swishing affairs, but THQ Wireless looks like they finally might have a Star Wars game in development that’s worth picking up: Star Wars Cantina.
As the title perhaps implies, this is a light-hearted simulation of running a cantina at the famous Mos Eisley Spaceport.
According to the official blurb, “Your task is to see that the right beverage finds its way to the right customer. And don’t keep them waiting, some of the customers are real troublemakers! Working towards your daily quota, accuracy and speed are essential. As a reward for a job well done, outfit your cantina with decorations and attractions to appeal to even the most difficult customers.”
Star Wars Cantina should be coming to the App Store soon. It looks great. Now what about the HD version?
Officially, it’s “a computer mystery/romance set five minutes into the future of 1988”. It’s available for Windows, Linux and Mac, and it’s a joy for old-timers like me to behold.
What you see when you start Digital is how computers used to be. Back in the days when Cult of Mac would have been a roughly-stapled fanzine sold for 50 cents a copy (please send a stamped addressed envelope).
But it’s more than a nostalgia trip. It’s something else. Built by Ontario-based author Christine Love, Digital promises much more than just nostalgia. You might even get to save the world by exploiting a buffer overflow. That’s how old-school nerd superheroes used to do things.
Ported and expanded from the popular Amiga shareware game Deluxe Galaga by the original author, Edgar Vigdal, the 2D space SHMUP Warblade features well over 100 levels, multiple power-ups and dozens of enemies. Without a doubt, its one of the best Galaga-inspired arcade shooters on OS X… and now it’s heading to the App Store.
Most SHMUPs require extremely precise controls, but Warblade is no danmaku, and the game’s level design is forgiving enough that it looks like the iPhone’s touchscreen will work out pretty well. Vigdal claims that the port is 80% done, so we should see it on the App Store soon.
I’m pretty excited: the App Store seems woefully short on good SHMUPS. Until someone gets around to porting Cho Ren Sha 68K to the iPhone, Warblades looks like it’ll be the best SHMUP gaming on the Apple handheld is going to get.
On Friday, we started something new here at Cult of Mac: we asked you what iPhone games you were playing that we might recommend for our weekend gaming feature.
In the wee hours of the morning, Nintendo very quietly announced the successor to its wildly successful line of Nintendo DS gaming handhelds: the Nintendo 3DS.
Following Nintendo’s recent trend of embracing bold and unconventional gaming hardware (e.g. the Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing controls, or the original Nintendo DS’s dual screen / touchscreen approach) the 3DS, as its name implies, promises to bring full 3D without glasses to handheld gaming.
What’s of interest to the announcement for Apple fans, though, is the timing. Like many tech companies, Nintendo tends to announce its biggest products at industry events. The Nintendo DS is such a wild success for the company, they’d be sure to announce their follow-up handheld at a major expo, such as May’s E3 Expo.
Instead, though, Nintendo chose to announce the 3DS with a terse press release and a promise to give more details in May…. following right on the heels of a report that shows that the iPhone and iPod Touch have claimed 19% of the handheld gaming market from Nintendo, thanks to the App Store, in only 21 months.
This announcement has all the hallmarks of a hastily made pacifying gesture to Nintendo investors alarmed by Apple’s unexpected success in the handheld gaming market: “Don’t worry, we’re not resting on our laurels, we’ve got something new up our sleeves.”
I’m eagerly anticipating E3’s 3DS announcements. My guess is that the App Store has changed the mobile gaming development scene forever, and an integral part to Nintendo’s own strategy will be to extend their WiiWare downloadable games service to the 3DS while opening it up to public submissions.
No one here’s going to argue that the App Store can’t be arbitrary and borderline tyrannical… but you know, sometimes developers get what’s coming to them: Zits & Giggles, a high-brow dermatological simulator, has been pulled from the App Store after its creator, Tommy Refenes, told an audience at San Francisco’s Game Developer Conference that he “absolutely f***ing hate(s) the iPhone App Store.” And that f-bomb ain’t “fudge.”
Of course, there’s more to this than that. Refenes seems to have had an axe to grind with Apple, having raised Zits & Giggles price from $0.99 to $15.99 to $299.99 to $399.99 over a period of about six months. Shockingly, the app still managed to sell fourteen copies at the price of $299.99.
What was the point of all of this? To prove how crummy the App Store is because it’s not aimed at “real gamers,” apparently.
“My conclusion to all of this is that the people you’re selling games to on the App store, they’re not necessarily gamers. There are some games that sell very well on the App store, but for the most part, when you have stuff like Street Fighter and Assassin’s Creed, the are a way to sell a brand, just like the Tiger handhelds were,” said Refenes.
Something tells me that Apple couldn;t really care less about some punk kid mouthing off, and this is really about selling a zit-bursting simulator for more than the cost of a real-life visit to a dermatologist.
Whatever, though: I think this is one zit on Apple’s backside we’re all perfectly happy to see excised.
Revolutionary Concepts (who also did the excellent port of the early 80s’ laser disc game Cobra Commandhave just released a trailer for their forthcoming iPhone game, Frogman.
Basically, take the gameplay of Konami’s classic coin-op arcade game Frogger, plop it in a bright, cartoony 3D world and turn the eponymous amphibian into a superhero whose origins owe as much to Seth Brundle as they do to Ben Edlund.
It looks fantastic: as the developers state, “[It’s] Frogger’s 3rd Cousin Twice Removed – on Steroids!” There’s even an iPad version coming. For guys like me, who always loved Frogger, but wanted more levels, this looks like just the ticket. Here’s hoping it hits the App Store soon.
