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The Official iPhone/iPod Touch Gaming Thread

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re Capcom sale titles, any gaffer impressions for what is awesome / what is not awesome / what is just about worth it now its on sale etc etc?

thanks!
 
Mega Man II is actually pretty good now. The landscape mode helps a lot and I'm not struggling with controls at all. It also runs perfectly smooth (better than the NES game even), at least on iPhone4.

Image is a touch small, but it's not too bad.

Dark Void Zero, on the other hand, fares a bit worse. They used some nasty stretching technique that produces muddy visuals and it only runs at 30 fps. Oddly enough, the PC port of DVZ also runs at 30 fps, so it seems to be a limitation with the game itself. I can't imagine why it was restricted. Controls decently enough, I suppose, but it doesn't feel great.
 
I don't really have any experience with the Phoenix Wright port but if it is at all competent that's an amazing price for some fantastic Japanese courtroom insanity.
 
edbrat said:
re Capcom sale titles, any gaffer impressions for what is awesome / what is not awesome / what is just about worth it now its on sale etc etc?

thanks!
I'm considering hitting the "buy now" button for Street Fighter IV. Any impressions, GAF?
 
the•rebel said:
I'm considering hitting the "buy now" button for Street Fighter IV. Any impressions, GAF?
Um, fantastic. Well worth it if you like fighting games and are relatively good at touch controls.
 
Ice Monkey said:
Here you go mateys. Everyone feel free to add if I missed anything. Goddamn you for making me do this you f wads.

Best Games (as most holiest dictated by my categories)
(and also just general recommended as I'm lazy)

iPad Specific

Diner Dash GG
Harbor Master
Hotel Mogul HD
Knights RTS
Magic Piano (OHMYGAWD HEART <3 GONNA TEAR UP ;-( )
Mahjongg 2 HD
Mirror's Edge
Osmos
Pinball HD
SMB2 sakura
Zen Bound 2

iPhone Specific

100 rogues
1112 ep 1+2
7 cities TD
Aztec Quest
Beat it!
Bejeweled 2
Besiegement
Bloons TD
Build a Lot
Build a Lot 2
Carcassonne
Chaos Rings
Cooking Dash
Cooking Mama
Critter Crunch
Crystal Defenders
Crush the Castle
Defender Chronicles
Doodle Jump
Doom
Doom 2 RPG
Edge
Eliss
Fantastic Contraption
Flick Football
FixPix
geoDefense
GTA CTW
Helsing's Fire
Lumines
Monkey Island SE
Peggle
PewPew Land
Saving Private Sheep
Street Fighter 4
SMB/2
Star Defense
Stars Wars Battle for Hoth
Sword and Poker
Sword and Poker 2
Tap Defense
Tilt to Live
Topple
Topple 2
Hook Champ
Mikado Defenders
Beneath a Steel Sky
Taiko no Tatsujin
Tumbledrop
UniWar
Valet Hero
Vanguard Hero
Vector TD
We Farm
Wolfenstein
Wolfenstein RPG
WordJong
Zen Bound

Both, Yo

Angry Birds (HD)
The Battle for Wesnoth (HD)
Blood and Honor
Broken Sword
Canabalt
Charadium (HD)
Cogs (HD?)
The Creeps! (HD)
Civilization Revolution (HD)
Crosswords
Enigmo (deluxe)
Enigmo 2
Fieldrunners (HD)
Flight Control (HD)
Fruit Ninja (HD)
Galcon Fusion
Geometry Wars Touch
Labyrinth 2 HD
Monkey Island 2 SE (OMG CREAM MY PANTS)
Numba (HD)
Plants vs Zombies (HD)
Scrabble (HD)
Space Station Frontier (HD)
The Sword of Fargoal
Tetris
Tiki Towers (HD)
Tweet Defense (HD)
Strategery
Uno
We Rule
Words with Friends
Zombieville (HD)

Worth Mention

Highborn
Palm Heroes
Aurora Feint 1+2+3?
Babo Crash
You should really check out Hector: Badge of Carnage if you enjoy Monkey Island.
 
Pastry said:
Angry Birds just got a new update looks like it has some new levels and a new bird. :D
I upgraded to ios4 and the game reset itself so now I'm back to level 1. Ah well I'll just play it again :D
 
They just updated NOVA with iPhone4 support.

First game I've played with gyroscope controls. You still have standard controls available along with the gyroscope being used for additional viewpoint controls. Seems more like a tech demo kind of addition, but it is neat. Very accurate as well. Sitting in a rotating chair, you can rotate the chair and have the games camera pan along with your chair movement. Very cool. As it stands, it works well when you use the "trackpad" method of swiping for normal aiming with fine tuning via gyroscope.

They also added "retina display" support. Runs at 60 fps much of the time (so just a touch slower than the game did in 480x360 on the i4), but it looks much much nicer. The texture filtering is significantly better and the extra clarity really improves the overall visuals. They did not improve the HUD resolution, unfortunately, but it's not particularly noticeable while playing.

I do so wish that all new games being released had support for the higher resolution iPhone4 screen as it makes a huge difference.

Also, Sega updated Sonic the Hedgehog so that it actually runs properly on iPhone4. All of their Genesis games were broken on iOS4 as well as iPad and iPhone4. The ONLY way to get 60 fps prior to the update was to play the game on a 3GS with 3.1.3. Now it works perfectly again.

Still, I'm sure you need a 3GS, iPhone4, or iPad to actually get 60 fps. The older generation devices all run the game at half the framerate (which is why it was probably slammed when first released).
 
Minsc said:
Thoughts on the rest of Square's iPhone library anyone?

I know Chaos Rings is supposed to be worth the price, but Square titles seem to demand a decent premium. Here's what I see on iTunes:

Final Fantasy I & II (these look to be the enhanced PSP versions?)
Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes
Hill and Rivers Remain
Crystal Defenders

I need to try song summoner, heard good things, but a huge thumbs up (from me at least) for crystal defenders. It doesn't have the greatest controls in the world but it's a pretty damn solid TD with a FF tactics flair. Definitely worth it IMHO.

vanguard storm is an interesting game too, pretty unique way of combat that's refreshing.
 
Minsc said:
Thoughts on the rest of Square's iPhone library anyone?

I know Chaos Rings is supposed to be worth the price, but Square titles seem to demand a decent premium. Here's what I see on iTunes:

Final Fantasy I & II (these look to be the enhanced PSP versions?)
Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes
Hill and Rivers Remain
Crystal Defenders
I just beat Final Fantasy a few days ago and I do not recommend it. The game has about one paragraph worth of story and the game never tells you where to go next. The world is pretty big so get ready to spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out where to go next. A guide is a must.

Currently playing Final Fantasy II and it is infinitely better. This game actually has a story and a very interesting level up system. I feel like this is the first true FF game, chocobos, cid, behemoth, and ultima all make their first appearance here. I'm about 3/4 of the way done and have clocked 18 hours, FF1 took me 14 hours to complete.
 
burgerdog said:
I just beat Final Fantasy a few days ago and I do not recommend it. The game has about one paragraph worth of story and the game never tells you where to go next. The world is pretty big so get ready to spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out where to go next. A guide is a must.

Currently playing Final Fantasy II and it is infinitely better. This game actually has a story and a very interesting level up system. I feel like this is the first true FF game, chocobos, cid, behemoth, and ultima all make their first appearance here. I'm about 3/4 of the way done and have clocked 18 hours, FF1 took me 14 hours to complete.

Is the final fantasy 2 that they include the one with cecil? That's my favorite. So much nostalgia.

Don't knock ff1, though. It's a classic. It may be long in the tooth but it deserves respect :P
 
Ice Monkey said:
Is the final fantasy 2 that they include the one with cecil? That's my favorite. So much nostalgia.

No, that should be FFIV. This is assuming that Square has kept consistent with their new naming system (keeping with the japanese version numbers instead of the american ones from the 90's).
 
Ice Monkey said:
Is the final fantasy 2 that they include the one with cecil? That's my favorite. So much nostalgia.

Don't knock ff1, though. It's a classic. It may be long in the tooth but it deserves respect :P

That's Final Fantasy IV, II was a Japan only release until FF Origins.
 
burgerdog said:


I already owned the iPad version and just downloaded the update earlier today.

played around 20 minutes on the iPhone and it looks nice (3GS here). they added some new game modes over the first game like "nail bombs" that change things up a bit from the traditional way of playing. I think it's worth it for 3 dollars (especially if you have an iPad since it's universal). it's a very chill game.
 
I bought NOVA on my 3G not too long ago. I since upgrade to an iPhone 4, but NOVA didn't transfer. I don't think I ever synced the purchase with iTunes before upgrading the phone. Am I screwed?
 
Ice Monkey said:
Is the final fantasy 2 that they include the one with cecil? That's my favorite. So much nostalgia.

Don't knock ff1, though. It's a classic. It may be long in the tooth but it deserves respect :P

Description did say FFII is the one that introduces Cid. It would be awesome if they brought VI V and VI over to the iPhone as well.
 
Struct09 said:
I bought NOVA on my 3G not too long ago. I since upgrade to an iPhone 4, but NOVA didn't transfer. I don't think I ever synced the purchase with iTunes before upgrading the phone. Am I screwed?

If you bought it on your Phone or in iTunes, regardless - you bought it and iTunes remembers. I am 99% sure that you can re-buy it and it'll tell you it's free because you already bought it.

But you might want to get a second opinion ..
 
X-Frame said:
If you bought it on your Phone or in iTunes, regardless - you bought it and iTunes remembers. I am 99% sure that you can re-buy it and it'll tell you it's free because you already bought it.

But you might want to get a second opinion ..

Yeah, I hoped iTunes would remember, but it's listing the price to me when I go to "buy" it again.
 
Struct09 said:
Yeah, I hoped iTunes would remember, but it's listing the price to me when I go to "buy" it again.
It always does that. Click on it, and it'll mention you already bought it when you download it. You won't be paying twice.
 
yeah, instant buy for me too. it looks amazing on iphone 4.

so does NOVA, actually - that update might make me play the game a bit more, though the gyroscope controls are kind of bullshit unless you're like, standing up.
 
I really want Zen Bound 2 but as of last night, my iPhone will no longer let me play paid apps :(

Old paid apps work fine.

New & Old free apps work fine.

New paid apps don't launch :(

Anyone had this before? I've tried deleting SF4 from the iPhone and iTunes and re-downloading it but that didn't help. I have 25gb of apps, I really don't want to have to re-download them all.
 
I wish data for universal app games like Zen Bound 2 was held in the cloud. It'd be great if I could play it during the day on my iPhone then continue from where I left off on the iPad at home.
 
Wrestlemania said:
I wish data for universal app games like Zen Bound 2 was held in the cloud. It'd be great if I could play it during the day on my iPhone then continue from where I left off on the iPad at home.

Agreed, some apps do it but not all. Next step for Apple should be a cohesive browser experience, so the tabs I had open when I closed my Mac would transfer over to my phone or iPad.

But yes, Apple should set up some cloud API for savegames or the likes.
 
Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night is out on the App Store. Downloading now... it's $4.99. Not sure if it'll be worth the price, but I'm a sucker for anything Castlevania.
 
SmokyDave said:
I really want Zen Bound 2 but as of last night, my iPhone will no longer let me play paid apps :(

Old paid apps work fine.

New & Old free apps work fine.

New paid apps don't launch :(

Anyone had this before? I've tried deleting SF4 from the iPhone and iTunes and re-downloading it but that didn't help. I have 25gb of apps, I really don't want to have to re-download them all.
Sounds like the iphone has lost your itunes account info - might be worth checking Settings to make sure everything is in there correctly. Can you view your account history okay?

EDIT: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1325 implies that you can deauthorise your PCs then reauthorise (and presumably sync again)
 
kitchenmotors said:
Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night is out on the App Store. Downloading now... it's $4.99. Not sure if it'll be worth the price, but I'm a sucker for anything Castlevania.
Been out for about a week in the UK. It's fantastic.
 
kitchenmotors said:
Castlevania Puzzle: Encore of the Night is out on the App Store. Downloading now... it's $4.99. Not sure if it'll be worth the price, but I'm a sucker for anything Castlevania.


It is pure genius!
 
Dynoro said:
Sounds like the iphone has lost your itunes account info - might be worth checking Settings to make sure everything is in there correctly. Can you view your account history okay?

EDIT: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1325 implies that you can deauthorise your PCs then reauthorise (and presumably sync again)
Thank you, I'll give that a go. I can view my account info and sync. I'm moving my iTunes library tonight so I'll give it a go then.

Wrestlemania said:
Been out for about a week in the UK. It's fantastic.
Hnnnng. Must be able to purchase apps!
 
Can someone please recommend the best arcade-style sports games available on the app store?
I'm keenest on golf, tennis, bowling, and perhaps darts.
No sim-style sports games, please.
 
Mejilan said:
Can someone please recommend the best arcade-style sports games available on the app store?
I'm keenest on golf, tennis, bowling, and perhaps darts.
No sim-style sports games, please.

I don't play sports games much, but saw this today, and it looks pretty awesome (Let's Golf 2, referred to as "closest thing to Hot Shots Golf").

Plenty of wackiness to enjoy from the video, looks like it supports online play too, could be a nice game actually!
 
I lurk this thread all the time, but I'm finally moved to post for the first time in forever (thanks, iPhone 4!). I went from an original iPhone (crap for gaming) to the 4, which is amazing.

So...my current loves:

Jet Car Stunts - retina display support just added, and it looks shit hot. Also, fast task switching = load game, drive off cliff, stop, come back and play another try next time i have a spare minute. I love it.

Hellsing's Fire - as far as I know, a totally original idea for a puzzler. Quite fun.

Dark Void Zero - I'm taken in by the nostalgia and love it. The D-Pad isn't perfect. I just pretend it adds to the "Nintendo hard." Your mileage may vary, but for a buck I'd scoop it up.

Flik Kick Football - Just shut up and go buy it already.
 
the_painted_bird said:
Let's get CastleVania Puzzle impressions on the table, please!

I've clocked about 30 minutes, so here are your impressions:

First thing that will strike you if you've played SOTN is that Konami has created almost no new assets for this game. The music is the same, the sprites are the same, the map is practically the same. (The character portraits are sufficiently high rez.) If you love SOTN as much as I do, this is a great thing, but others may feel it's lazy.

Think of the map system as Puzzle Quest, except on the map from SOTN. You move from room to room, some rooms are locked off until you have an appropriate item. Moving to a room may get you into a random encounter, you might find an item, or nothing could happen. You can still hit random mobs in rooms you've been in before.

Battle plays a bit like Puzzle Fighter: you're dropping paired gems down a well and you want to match 3 (doesn't have to be in a straight line). The pairs sometimes include inactive pieces which you have to match next to to activate, but that makes chaining pretty easy since you can buffer in pieces to break. There's no "giant gem" building ala Puzzle Fighter. Making chains sends inactive blocks over to your opponents. The sort of twist combat here is there's a timer at the bottom of the screen, and when the hourglass runs out, both players take some quantity of damage (HP meter at the top) based on how empty their playfield is. So the goal is not to necessarily create giant chain structures (unless you can tank the damage) but to balance an empty playfield with flinging shit at your opponent. Note that a full playfield does NOT kill the other player, but does "a percentage of damage" and knocks a few lines out of the bottom. So filling their screen is likely to kill them but it's not instant death. (There's also a type of block called a "Blood Block" which is apparently a wildcard, but I haven't seen them yet.)

You can also use items or magic during battle - there's a "quick cast" button that lets you assign four items or spells to four quadrants of the screen. I only have healing items so far so can't tell you what spells are there.

Battle controls: Tap to rotate, drag to move, swipe to fast drop. Controls work pretty well and there's a sensitivity slider in the settings to change how much of a swipe you need to fast drop.

Character building: oh man, there's a lot to do here. Strength increases your attack power, so more damage per hourglass flip. Stamina increases your maximum HP. Intelligence increases your maximum HP and increases spell effectiveness. Luck influences the color of block spawns for you AND your opponent. Then there are five affinities, one for each element/color of block - leveling those up will unlock you spells at various milestones (first one is level 5). Like PQ, you get a batch of upgrade points per level and you can distribute them however you want.

IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH: 7-slot inventory system, with item sets that bestow bonuses. An achievement system called "Honors" which will give you additional items. A card system, which does little other than unlock Honors (as best I can tell). The save rooms on the SOTN map are now "Safe Rooms", which restore your HP, let you shop, and let you warp between previously visited ones. Facebook integration for leaderboards. And Arcade Mode, in case you don't have time to dig into Story Mode.

One last note: I'm playing on an iPad and it looks great at 2x. So iPad owners shouldn't wait for a native version because I don't know what the point would be.

So basically it's Puzzle Metroidvania and you should buy it immediately.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED FOR: Puzzle Quest fans, Castlevania fans, Metroidvania fans, people who like fun.
 
I just got it and played a couple rounds. I'm not a big Match-3 fan (wish it was like Puzzle Fighter!) but due to the above-mentioned depth seems like quite a good buy.

Wondering about Let's Golf 2 as well -- how does it stack up to Hot Shots? Inferior but competent or pale imitation?
 
SmokyDave said:
I really want Zen Bound 2 but as of last night, my iPhone will no longer let me play paid apps :(

Old paid apps work fine.

New & Old free apps work fine.

New paid apps don't launch :(

Anyone had this before? I've tried deleting SF4 from the iPhone and iTunes and re-downloading it but that didn't help. I have 25gb of apps, I really don't want to have to re-download them all.
Did you restart it? Sometimes it needs to be restarted for apps to launch at all.
Hope you can solve the issue.
 
I was excited for Castlevania Puzzle when it was announced. I had hoped it would be a Puzzle Fighter esque game with Castlevania sprites and music.

...which is pretty much exactly what it is! The touch controls take a little getting used to, but I like the spin it takes on Puzzle Fighter. It surprisingly has a bit of depth to it. Definitely worth my $5 :D
 
Gamecocks625 said:
Any impressions of Let's Golf 2 and/or Risk? They were both released today.
Risk is tempting but looks a little to close to Lux DLX 2 for my liking (which I already enjoy, supports ipad and has custom maps)
 
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