As I am sure you are aware due to Alex’s shameless plugging, there is a new site in town called AppTilt. It’s about gaming, naturally, but focuses on iDevice game reviews. Because Alex wanted the quality of the reviews to appear to be better he asked me to write some. I obliged, and he emailed me to say, “Hey, now your reviews are on the site, the other reviews do appear to be much better quality – thanks.”
One good thing to have come out of this humiliation is that I’ve been playing a few more iPhone games of late. On my new iPhone 4, if you must know. I know you didn’t need to know, but knowing you now know and are, in all likelihood a bit jealous, gives me a nice, warm feeling, you know.
Now, as this is Sunday Thoughts I have been thoughting, I mean thinking, about some of the best iPhone games and what makes them so special and comparing that to some of the AAA games we play on our home consoles. For years console games have been shedding some of the old-skool gameplay conventions. I’m thoughting, I mean thinking – is this joke tedious yet, what do you thought, I mean think? – of things like “lives” and “continues” and “no flippin’ story to speak of whatsoever”.
It’s good that they’ve started to die out, right? “Lives” and “continues” are all well and good as a way of adding challenge, but checkpoints and recharging health are better. Here’s the rub: A lot of the best iPhone games seem to embrace the old-skool, dress it up in shiny new touch controls, and then sell bucketloads for 59p. And despite having been a gamer for so long and witnessing the emergence of new and better ways of gaming, I’m finding the retro mechanics of many an iPhone game absolutely charming.
It’s because “One more go” gaming has gone mobile that the concept of “lives” and “continues” isn’t as soul-destroying as it once was. Many of these games are short and sharp, and even if you do have to start again it’s not as big a disaster as it would be in, say Killzone or Halo. I’ve recently been enjoying MX Mayhem and in the review I lament the fact that it features the concept of “lives” and that it can be frustrating.
However, it’s never so frustrating as to render the game unplayable. I’m always up for a quick 5-minute blast while waiting for my girlfriend to try on new shoes. And because there’s no story or real progression to get in the way, it’s just plain fun to replay the courses over and over. But, if this were for a console I’d never bother to boot up such a game.
iDevice gaming has also brought interface design smack-bang into the forefront of gaming again. And the effect? There are many developers that just don’t understand a touch interface and their games highlight this. And then there are the Firemint’s and PopCap’s of this world, who create such perfect breedings of game and interface that they make my eyes drip tears of blood whenever I have cause to play something that requires one of those cumbersome joypads.
It’s not all fun and games though, is it? I mean, it is obviously all fun and games, because even when Apple mess up and sell a phone that doesn’t actually work as a phone if you hold it, they can pass this off as nothing more than a wonky software algorithm. Wait, what?
What I’m hoping for is that the release of Move and Kinect will usher in another new era of gaming, where the sublime UI of Touch Control is wedded to the depth and graphical fidelity of AAA console games and we end up with…well, with Wii Tennis that looks a bit realistic.
And so like Englishmen clutching at goal-line technology as a route to winning the World Cup, I’m hoping that one day all games will be made this way.
tinman9
screen to small for me to become a serious games platform but I can see how people having short trips the iphone and games becomes useful