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The Official iPhone/iPod Touch Gaming Thread

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jonnybryce said:
Where are the game saves? When I sync does the save sync to the app or are they just stuck to the iPhone somewhere that can't get out?

Be careful about deleting apps because you delete the save files and there is no default way to do backups. (Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on this) An annoying oversight they still haven't fixed at least the last time I looked into it.

I think there may be a way to backup save files if you jailbreak although I haven't had my phone jail broken in a while so I'm out of the loop.
 
Stoney Mason said:
Be careful about deleting apps because you delete the save files and there is no default way to do backups. (Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on this) An annoying oversight they still haven't fixed at least the last time I looked into it.

I think there may be a way to backup save files if you jailbreak although I haven't had my phone jail broken in a while so I'm out of the loop.

It sucks that I can't even remove some apps from my iMachine for more space because once I remove it I deleted the save.
 
Just a reminder bump. Mecho Wars is on sale for 99 cents this weekend.

Stoney Mason said:
Oh Lord. Now we can officially call it "pulling a Peggle" :lol


Mecho Wars is 99 cents this weekend.

Itunes Link
Impressions Thread
Review
Video #1
Video #2


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One thing apple need to do for either an OS3 update or prepare for OS4 is a way to back up save files, even if they are linked to one device to stop sharing, a legit way to back up saves. Is it too much to ask?

I already lost my saves once last month by clicking one wrong button when syncing my touch to my new pc (old machine is unavailable to do any kind of backup) so my 15+ hours of puzzle quest went right out the window :( (had no wifi to back up my save, too, using the game's built in backup system)

So yeah, apple need to seriously do something about saves.
 
Of All Trades said:
Is it any good? It looks bleh (and I just bought Uniwars).

I bought it because the impressions were good but I haven't played it yet as I still have a backlog I'm working through so I can't give a real recommendation.

Uniwar is a darn good game and there is certainly no reason you have to get another strategy game now when playing through that game but my iphone game philosophy is occasionally I buy things if it's a good deal just for when I eventually get around to catching up with my backlog.

As far as the looks a lot of people mention that but based on screens outside of personal preference I don't have a problem with the art look of the game. Yes its a derivative and overly colorful look but then it's not like uniwar is the prettiest game in the world either. They both look to have functional looks imo.
 
Are there any space exploration/trading games out for the iPhone? I could have swore I saw one in the works awhile back, but can't remember the name and I'm not finding anything. Now that I have a 3GS I'm interested in adding some good games to the phone.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Are there any space exploration/trading games out for the iPhone? I could have swore I saw one in the works awhile back, but can't remember the name and I'm not finding anything. Now that I have a 3GS I'm interested in adding some good games to the phone.

Galaxy on Fire maybe
 
Picked up Mecho Wars, only put in a few minutes but I can say right off the bat I like the UI and how brisk the menus move. Looks nice, animates well, and has decent sounds/music from what I see, and it's very easy to play if you've ever played Advance Wars (since it's much more of a rip off than UniWar is).

Speaking of UniWar, I couldn't really get into it because of how ugly and clunky some of the menus and text were. The game itself had a nice level of depth but I couldn't get into it due to it all looking and sounding so yucko. We'll see if Mecho Wars stacks up in the actual gameplay department.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Wow! Galaxy on Fire has some nice graphics and is pretty intense. Interesting stuff.
The trading is far from brilliant but I am only at the early stages of the game, lost my save for it last month so I need to start again :( The combat is quite nice but I wish there was more dodging options then to play chicken with other ships and see who dies first.

*edit* Apple rejects legalised C64 emulator!

toucharcade said:
What Manomio has done is to create a fully licensed Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone that can play classic games and even run Commodore 64 BASIC. The full list of features are as follows:

Full speed, Commodore 64 emulator
SID sound emulation
Auto-save, to continue exactly where you left off
Realistic joystick and beautifully crafted C64 keyboard
Portrait and Landscape play
Vertical and Fullscreen gaming (auto rotate for iPod users)
Did I mention it was legally licensed?

toucharcade said:
It all came to a head last week, however, when Manomio confidently submitted C64 for iPhone along with 3 individual gamepacks (officially licensed) to use along with the emulator. All seemed fine until Manomio received the dreaded App Store rejection email:

apple said:
Thank you for submitting C64 1.0 to the App Store. We've reviewed C64 1.0 and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it violates the iPhone SDK Agreement; "3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

It's a shame, because Sonic 1, Golden Axe, FLashback and some other "emulators" already load up other data, hell with Sega, Sonic 1 is just a rom in an emulator and people have already taken out the rom and placed another game in :lol , apple your review process is so boked.
 
Diablohead said:
The trading is far from brilliant but I am only at the early stages of the game, lost my save for it last month so I need to start again :( The combat is quite nice but I wish there was more dodging options then to play chicken with other ships and see who dies first.

*edit* Apple rejects legalised C64 emulator!







It's a shame, because Sonic 1, Golden Axe, FLashback and some other "emulators" already load up other data, hell with Sega, Sonic 1 is just a rom in an emulator and people have already taken out the rom and placed another game in :lol , apple your review process is so boked.

Come on, anyone who thought Apple would release a straight up emulator is insane. They shouldn't have wasted the development time on it.
 
Tobor said:
Come on, anyone who thought Apple would release a straight up emulator is insane. They shouldn't have wasted the development time on it.
They will probably bundle the roms into the package as default and remove any manual coding like you can do on a c64, then it should be valid for sale. As I said above a few games out on the store are emulators but the rom is included, and can even be removed / swaped if you jailbreak.
 
To transfer your game saves to a new phone back up the old one then plug in the new iPhone and restore from the back up you just made. That's how I got all my saves on my 3G S.
 
Pretty funny; just got an email from my sister, responding to my email asking about her iPhone. She said her favorite games are Oregon Trail & Shift.

It was a good reminder to me of how broad the appeal of iPhone gaming is. Makes me wonder what other classic IPs like Oregon Trail are out there that would do well on iPhone.
 
iBomber went from $2.99 -> $1.99

iBomber is an amazing, arcade styled bombing game based in the Pacific Ocean in 1943.

You play a young bomber pilot protecting your fleet whilst searching out key enemy targets on land and sea to destroy!

iBomber will immediately transport you into the thick of the action with multiple missions offering a great variety of gameplay, excitement and entertainment.

New Missions and Features to be added in future updates.

Featuring:
- 12 action packed missions.
- Super smooth game-play.
- Amazingly detailed graphics.
- Multiple bomb types and pick-ups.
- Amazing audio and 3D spatial sound.
- The satisfaction of blowing everything up!

774112_4.jpg


App Link ( $1.99)
Lite Version
 
Gemini Z said:
To transfer your game saves to a new phone back up the old one then plug in the new iPhone and restore from the back up you just made. That's how I got all my saves on my 3G S.

Yeah, for those complaining that you can't back up your saves, every time you sync the first thing that happens is your phone gets backed up...including any saves. Then doing a restore gets them back. Of course, if you deleted an app that would delete the save, and then it would back up that the app was deleted...

Unfortunately, Apple can't backup saves, because they don't know what file in an app might be the save data. Developers can save the data to any filename and file format that they want, and apps can write as many files as they want for any reason. So Apple just backs up the entire app.
 
Diablohead said:
While app's can be tested on OS 3.0, only now can we test app's on the new 3GS hardware, so yeah you are going to run into a few iffy games for the next few weeks or so.

Most games should be fine, as the only real hardware difference is speed, and most games use a system timer to call their main loop (so it'll be called every 1/30th or 1/60th of a second or whatever, regardless of the speed of the processor/graphics chip). And any game that didn't do that would have already been having problems with the 2G iPod Touch.

The good news is, games that were getting slowdown before due to taking longer to do something than one timer call, will actually improve with the new hardware, unless the game was balanced for that slowdown. The game I worked on last that got shipped, Atari Football, will run a lot better on the 3GS, since we were really pushing the polygons (though it may not look it...)
 
EDGE has just joined Pinball Dreams and Zen Bound as my all time favorite iPhone game. I couldn't recommend this enough. The controls are perfect and music and aesthetics are nothing short of brilliant. It looks and sounds like a game made with C64 aesthetic mindset, but with a very modern spin and fresh graphics rendering approach to retro look. I felt it was a steal for $5.

Just look at it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_aB_ZkonGw
(make sure to enable HQ mode, the graphics crispness is part of appeal)

Diablohead said:
The trading is far from brilliant but I am only at the early stages of the game, lost my save for it last month so I need to start again :( The combat is quite nice but I wish there was more dodging options then to play chicken with other ships and see who dies first.

*edit* Apple rejects legalised C64 emulator!

It's a shame, because Sonic 1, Golden Axe, FLashback and some other "emulators" already load up other data, hell with Sega, Sonic 1 is just a rom in an emulator and people have already taken out the rom and placed another game in :lol , apple your review process is so boked.
Funny as I was thinking how nice it would be to have C64 emulator on iPhone today when I was playing my favorite Amiga port of Pinball Dreams (in perfect 60FPS portrait mode on 3GS :-D )

I bet the gamepacks he licensed wouldn't have much that would interest me, but still would be nice to have C64 on this handheld too.

*edit* Just saw the pictures and video, holy hell that looks amazing. Please release it somehow!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUQH24c63g8

*edit #2* Oh crap, I see from his comments in that forum that the author of this is toying with the idea of Amiga emulator if C64 somehow goes through. Yes please!

As far as I can see, the problem must have been that this emulator was supposed to download game packs from somewhere - in essence it was to have a game store of its own, which I can see Apple being against. They should just merge games into the executable, and keep releasing updates of the main app with added new games (which they could charge for).

16homit.jpg
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People!! This is an incredibly important question that we need an answer to! Lives are potentially at stake!
dLMN8R said:
My friend and I are looking for a good scrabble game that we can play multiplayer from different states.

Both Scrabble and Lexulous support Facebook integration via their respective Facebook apps. Has anyone used one or both, and can anyone recommend which one is the better way to go?

-Scrabble is $5, but the Facebook Scrabble app sucked at first. Maybe it's better now, not sure. But we'll be playing on both Facebook and via iPhone

-Lexulous is $4, and the Facebook app is the well-established, immensely popular app that used to be called Scrabulous until they got sued. The game is now slightly different, but basically the same thing.


Help!
 
I wonder how feasible those 99 cents sale are. Once they dropped the price and get a short spike in sale, I wonder if it can ever sell again once it raised the price back up.
 
ZapTap got a price cut to FREE for a limited time, down from $4.99

[Groove to the funky vibe of the '80's!

With disco visuals and solid rhythms, Zaptap provides hours of fun. Listen for the tones or watch for the sequence of disco lights. Then see if you can play them back from memory.

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Features:

- As many fun levels as you can play
- Spectacular special effects and music
- Nerdy achievements and a global leaderboard
- Real science that to improve your cognitive skills

If you like the '80's, Miami Vice, Madonna, Guitar Hero, TapTap Revenge, and a visual and musical experience that will blow your mind, don't delay - try Zaptap now!

264881.jpg


App link
 
billy.sea said:
How is this compare to Uniwar?
its more of a straight advanced wars clone. its got a lot more personality than uniwar, though uniwar has more depth. its a definite buy at 99 cents and pretty worth it at 5 bucks. It's essentially a slightly rougher around the edges advanced wars with a third to half of the missions of the retail product for 1/30th of the price.
 
I just beat Terminator. There were some control issues and only 5ish enemies but I don't regret my purchase. It was a lot of fun, straight up shooting action with some fun breaks like driving a tank or boss batles or the hacking minigame which blew at first but became more challenging and fun later on.

3.8/5 from me. I liked it a lot!

Hm...I guess Assassin's Creed is next.

P.S. Gameloft's "More Games" app within their games is so slick. Shows the games like Coverflow with links to videos...nice.

rexor0717 said:
I bought Edge today, and I am very satisfied. I like the control options, but I use the D-pad. And there are so many levels too.

The dpad is the superior option, but I like using the touch/drag option because I feel like I have more control, for example when you have to mid-roll to hold on to moving blocks.

Anyhow, it's an amazing game. I want to play it more but I also don't want it to end so I'm playing it here and there.
 
Peggle is still the only game on my new phone. I need to look through this thread for some tips on other good stuff to try out.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Are there any space exploration/trading games out for the iPhone? I could have swore I saw one in the works awhile back, but can't remember the name and I'm not finding anything. Now that I have a 3GS I'm interested in adding some good games to the phone.

Someone ought to port that old BBS game. Tradewars I think i was called.
 
Have there been any recent adventure game releases on iPhone (like 1112 or Jake Hunter)? I'm always in the mood for a good adventure game.
 
thetrin said:
Have there been any recent adventure game releases on iPhone (like 1112 or Jake Hunter)? I'm always in the mood for a good adventure game.

Flight of the Amazon Queen and Return to Mysterious Island? The latter is fairly new but I haven't really heard much about adventure games recently... well I did read that Beneath a Steel Sky is coming but nothing else.
 
Coop said:
Flight of the Amazon Queen and Return to Mysterious Island? The latter is fairly new but I haven't really heard much about adventure games recently... well I did read that Beneath a Steel Sky is coming but nothing else.

Both are fantastic recommendations, thanks.

I seriously wish Kojima would port Policenauts to iPhone.
 
Stoney Mason said:
Baseball Slugger: Homerun Race 3D. Once again another game I don't actually own so I can't recommend but one that seems to be drawing favorable impressions from the early adopters who have it. Basically an online enabled home run derby contest game. Published by Com2uS Corp. who also put out the underrated 9 innings: Pro Baseball 2009.


Itunes Link
Video #1
Video #2

833267_3.jpg

833267_4.jpg
This game is awesome. The online play is really smooth (on 3GS at least) and the picture-in-picture showing your opponent's game is pretty exciting. Well worth the $3. The only drawback is grinding for unlockable stat boosting items. I knew this had to be a Korean game once I saw all the high priced goofy unlocks, including skin colors. I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to see that pigmentation does not affect your stats. The items don't seem to make too much of a difference early on, though, so it's not too big a deal.

I also bought Go Go Rescue Squad and I haven't played it much but I really love the character sprites. They crack me up.
 
Let's Golf is a much more enjoyable game on the 3GS. On my old phone the slow launching and crummy framerate killed it for me. Why play this instead of Hot Shots Golf on my PSP? But the 3GS bumps up its rating a bit. It's no Hot Shots - shit, I'm not even sure it's a Pangya - but it's alright. Way too hard to read the greens but other than that it's playable and not a bad purchase at 99 cents.
 
Diablohead said:
The trading is far from brilliant but I am only at the early stages of the game, lost my save for it last month so I need to start again :( The combat is quite nice but I wish there was more dodging options then to play chicken with other ships and see who dies first.

*edit* Apple rejects legalised C64 emulator!


It's a shame, because Sonic 1, Golden Axe, FLashback and some other "emulators" already load up other data, hell with Sega, Sonic 1 is just a rom in an emulator and people have already taken out the rom and placed another game in :lol , apple your review process is so boked.
At least that precise rejection is fair and 100% according to the clearly published rules of the AppStore.
Diablohead said:
They will probably bundle the roms into the package as default and remove any manual coding like you can do on a c64, then it should be valid for sale. As I said above a few games out on the store are emulators but the rom is included, and can even be removed / swaped if you jailbreak.
How about you actually read rule 3.3.2?
 
Lord Error said:
EDGE has just joined Pinball Dreams and Zen Bound as my all time favorite iPhone game. I couldn't recommend this enough. The controls are perfect and music and aesthetics are nothing short of brilliant. It looks and sounds like a game made with C64 aesthetic mindset, but with a very modern spin and fresh graphics rendering approach to retro look. I felt it was a steal for $5.

Just look at it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_aB_ZkonGw
(make sure to enable HQ mode, the graphics crispness is part of appeal)

Wow, that does look nice. Thanks for the video. I might pick this up.


Can't see that happening to be honest, unless they only let you download freeware stuff (which, granted, a lot of the C64 library is now). But as for those pictures you posted. That's International Karate by System 3. They still make games and still protect their copyrights. I wouldn't be surprised if they have that very game in development for the iPhone.
 
Lord Error said:
As far as I can see, the problem must have been that this emulator was supposed to download game packs from somewhere - in essence it was to have a game store of its own, which I can see Apple being against. They should just merge games into the executable, and keep releasing updates of the main app with added new games (which they could charge for).

16homit.jpg
2psmxav.jpg
if they are using 3.0 functions that ingame store could just be DLC, but it's still puzzling why other app's get away with either downloading a rom from elsewhere (flashback) or obviously include a rom already, oh well. I hope they can sort something out for the c64 emulator.
 
Diablohead said:
if they are using 3.0 functions that ingame store could just be DLC, but it's still puzzling why other app's get away with either downloading a rom from elsewhere (flashback) or obviously include a rom already, oh well. I hope they can sort something out for the c64 emulator.

Is there a possibility of adding your own C64 roms to this emulator without jailbreaking? There's no answer to that in the Touch Arcade article.
 
Mar_ said:
Can't see that happening to be honest, unless they only let you download freeware stuff (which, granted, a lot of the C64 library is now). But as for those pictures you posted. That's International Karate by System 3. They still make games and still protect their copyrights. I wouldn't be surprised if they have that very game in development for the iPhone.
Their problem was the fact that C64 games are executables (even if not native iphone execs) which are being loaded and ran by an iphone executable emulator. They apparently don't allow this, or even interpreting of loaded files.

Ironically, from the very same app store I've downloaded Frotz last night, which is not only allowing for external files to be loaded and interpreted from a non-apple commissioned URL, but it lets you set up f'n FTP server on the Iphone, so that you can copy any interactive fiction file from your computer to the iphone that you want. Oh Apple...

As for games, he only wanted to sell game pack with officially licensed games, so IK for example wouldn't be one of them.
 
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