61 Frames Per Second : iphone

iPod Games, You're Doing It Wrong

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Like it or not, the iPod/iPhone has become a gaming platform. There are tons of statistics out there and I'm not going to bore you with them, but the fact is a lot of people are making games for the iPod and a lot of people are downloading and playing them. This post is not about educating the blog-reading public so much as a friendly word of advice to the game developers out there.

iPod game developers, remember what your platform is. No matter how Apple dresses it up or the media hypes it, the iPod is first and foremost a portable music player. The iPhone is just an iPod that also happens to make phone calls. So please, when you want us to play your games on our personal music players, do take care when shutting off our music.

Just using the examples that are currently on my iPod Touch, the biggest offender is probably Scramble Live, Zynga's Boggle clone. There is no music in the game and very minimal sound effects, so why does clicking the icon automatically shut off my music? Are you worried that listening to Nas will distract me from finding words, and if so isn't that really more of my concern than yours? Scramble is clearly designed for short bursts of casual play, so every time I play a round on the train I have my music interrupted, then end the game and go back to start my music all over again. Not cool. The same goes for THQ's de Blob. The game does thankfully use the same wonderful music as the infinitely better Wii game (sans player interaction) but it asks you upon loading the game if you want sounds enabled AFTER it has already stopped the music. Why offer sound options after turning off the preexisting sounds? Just set sounds to "on" and I'll mute my iPod if I don't like them. Or better yet, let me paint the town red to the Replacements!

Some games get away with it because the music is so integral to the gameplay, as you'd think it should be on an iPod game. Newtonica, for example, has an incredibly simple gameplay mechanic in merely flicking a sphere around to catch crystals in the correctly colored quadrants, but without the bright and lively electronic soundtrack it would be dreary and impossible to play for more than ten seconds. Radio Flare plays like a 2D side scrolling Rez by targeting up to four obstacles or enemies at a time and blowing them all up in beat with the music. Neither game has a soundtrack I'd listen to on its own, nor particularly interesting gameplay, but the play and the audio element work perfectly together to make them compelling. Both games force my iPod to stop playing music, but they would be impossible to play set to any other music, so it's okay.

And then there are the games that simply get it right. The critically acclaimed RolandoEdge, a game that I've pretty much raved about on here before, is exactly the same story. Great original soundtrack, but no problem replacing it with your own mp3s. Aurora Feint, Sway, Adventure, all great games, fun for long stretches and short bursts alike, with wonderful sound effects and the ability to keep playing your own music while you play the game. has a fantastic original soundtrack, but it's more than happy to let you listen to your own tunes instead.

With OS 3.0 coming this summer - promising access to the iPod's media library within other apps - we can look forward to greater interaction between games and the user's existing music and photos (and hopefully a legit portable version of AudioSurf), so I ask you, iPod game developers, please, think twice before shutting off my tunes. If you have to interrupt Super Furry Animals, at least make the audio component an important part of the game.

Scarygirl is Out!

John Constantine — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Consider, for a moment, a world in which there were no consoles, no portable gaming devices, no games built specifically for the iPhone or your cell phone or your Trapper Keeper, no Steam, no games made specifically to harness a personal computer’s full power. Imagine a world where the only videogames in existence were Flash games. The genres would be familiar. You’d have platformers and shooters, puzzlers and adventures, sure. You’d never want for something new to play either. If you’ve opened a web browser in the past decade, you know as well as I do that there are thousands upon thousands of the blighters. And though there would be many things to play, there wouldn’t be much of it that was any good or artful.

In a world where all games were Flash games, Scarygirl would be a god.

In our world, Scarygirl is just exceptional. I stumbled upon Touch My Pixel’s videogame imagining of Nathan Jureviciu’s character last summer and fully expected it to be yet another promising unfinished project. Damn my cynical side! I am happy to be wrong though, since Scarygirl is now available to play right here.

It doesn’t run too well on my work computer, sadly, but it’s charming nonetheless. Great art, slick music, and a nice adventure platformer structure (think Tomba, not Super Metroid.) Check it out and marvel at what a Flash game can be.

Related links:

Donkey Kong II’s Revisionist History Rights Old Wrongs
Watcha Playing?: Spelunky
Indie Dev Moment: Blush
Indie Dev Moment: Jumpman
Indie Dev Moment: Dyson
Indie Dev Moment: Scarygirl

Whatcha Playing: Tappable Rhythm Sequels

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

I love a good rhythm game, but Guitar Hero and Rock Band have always felt forced to me. Holding a plastic representation of the object I'm simulating using just feels awkward to me (the same reason I've not enjoyed my few sessions with Mario Kart Wii so far). PaRappa The Rapper and Dance Dance Revolution really did it right, making a game out of the music rather than a simulation. My favorite, as I've mentioned before, is Rhythm Tengoku, the Japan-only Gameboy Advance cart from the WarioWare team that's all about keeping the beat in a series of wild and hilarious cartoon scenarios.

It dawned on me the other day that Rhythm Tengoku's DS sequel is finally being released in the west next month as Rhythm Heaven and that it may very well be a deservedly huge hit for Nintendo. I brushed off my nearly year-old import copy last week for a refresher. I was joyously reminded of how addictive and utterly charming the game is. Using the touch screen to tap, hold, and flick isn't quite as precise as the original's button taps, but very few of the games suffer as a result. The all-Japanese text is a bit more daunting this time as they're most likely describing what you should do on the touch screen and you have to use trial and error to figure out what to do when, but I still managed to make my way straight on through the end credits without frustration. In fact, I didn't think it possible, but I find the DS version much more lighthearted and playful than the GBA game. Only one minigame returns for the sequel, the rest are all new with new characters, and it's hard not to have your heart warmed by some of them. Every time I do the mating dance with the little lizard-with-a-maraca-for-a-tail, its warm, approving chirps actually make me fall in love with it just a little.

I've also been pretty fond of Tap Tap Revenge 2 on my iPod Touch since its release a week and a half ago. The engine is overhauled and much improved since the original, which was little more than a touch screen Guitar Hero. There are local and online competitive play and achievement-like rewards, but the truly fantastic feature that keeps me playing is the licensed downloadable songs. The basic game comes with three tracks: Death Cab For Cutie's "the Sound of Settling," a world premiere of the Crystal Method's new single "Double Down Under," and a brand-new exclusive theme song from Stroke 9 (remember them?), the surprisingly awesome "Tap Tap DomiNation". As with all music games, most of the downloadable tracks are stuff I don't care about nor do I even want to try, but there are a few that caught my interest. Daft Punk's "Technologic" is a must. Breakbot's remix of Fatlip's now-legendary "What's Up, Fatlip?" is synthetic bliss. Tap Tap Revenge even had another world-premiere last week with The Prodigy's new single "Omen". Weekly updates promise a smooth stream of new material, and the casual affair is well worth the price of admission for a free application with free song downloads. I'll never be truly satisfied, though, until these games start bringing in more Professor Murder, His Name is Alive and B-52s, but hey, that's what the rest of my iPod is for.

So basically I'm spending my daily commute looking at bright colors and tapping on touch screens to catchy music. Ain't technology grand? And to think, now we've got Bit.Trip Beat at home to keep the rhythm going...

Related articles:
Make The Music With Your Games, Kids!
Fun Fact: Metroid Meets Metronome
Yuusha 30 and Wario's Micro Game Legacy

The 61FPS Review: Edge

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

I am almost certain that over the past three months I've played more downloadable games on my iPod Touch than on my home consoles – and I've been all about Lumines Supernova lately. As expected from any hip new platform that just about anybody can develop applications for, a majority of the iPod games I've tried have been decidedly uninteresting and derivative of other, significantly better, games that I've already played. Thankfully, though, there are small studios putting time and thought into iPod games now and the media player finally has some truly excellent games, even if they still borrow from established franchises.

Just as ngmoco's much-hyped Rolando gives me what I always wanted from LocoRoco in the form of tilt and touch controls, Mobigame's Edge gives me what I always wanted from Marble Madness – a cube. Yes, yes, Marble Madness without the marble sounds boring and pointless, but that brings me to what is so awesome about Edge: everything else.

Edge's aesthetics have introduced a concept new to me: monochromatic electronic rainbow. Basically, the entire world is rendered in shades of grey with the cube, collectibles, end goal and edges of moving platforms all rendered in one color, but that one color is constantly cycling. At any given moment, they'll all be baby blue, but only for a split second. It's really quite beautiful in action and couples wonderfully with the animation, which is by far the smooooooooooothest animation I've seen on the media player outside of Pixar movie trailers. This all goes hand-in-hand with the absolutely perfect plunk, swoosh and click sound effects, delightful new wave chiptune soundtrack (which automatically turns itself off if you're already listening to music on your iPod) and eerie vocoder voice announcing the title of each new stage for an overall glorious presentation.

As a platform puzzler, Edge's 25 standard stages offer a good chunk of variety with a comfortable learning curve. Swipe your fingertip to push or pull the cube in isometric space (there is also tilt control, but I strongly recommend turning it off as it will only get in the way in the later stages that require precise movement or stillness). The only way to die is to fall into the vacuum of black space, and thankfully there are frequent respawn points and your cube instantly pops back there, no "try again" prompt necessary. There are fall-away tiles and moving platforms of varying speeds, tiles that rearrange themselves like self-aware and ambivalent train tracks and tiles that reform themselves into robots that walk across the stage as you ride atop them. The most interesting and addicting part, though, is the titular Edge mechanic, delicately balancing your cube on one of its eight edges against another platform, suspending itself in mid-air between 90-degree angles. Not only is this procedure awesome once you've become comfortable enough with it to make it more than halfway through the game's challenges (many a gap require this mechanic to be crossed), but it also subtracts the "edge time" from your overall level time, making it an essential skill for speed runners.

Collecting all of the mini-cubes in all of the stages also unlocks a final 26th stage. I mention this because its the one part of the game I haven't experienced yet. Some of those mini-cubes are hiding really well, but I haven't come close to giving up on retreading those stages just yet. Between those collectibles and the ever-present speed-run instinct, there's more than a fair amount of replay value in Edge. Between that and the absolutely top-notch presentation, Edge wins my pick for must-have iPhone/Touch game. The only shortcoming is that when it's over, you want more, and that's a good shortcoming to have.

Final Score: A

Previous reviews:

Game & Watch Collection
Valkyria Chronicles part 1 & part 2
Karaoke Revolution Presents American Idol Encore 2
Prince of Persia
LittleBigPlanet part 1, part 2
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

Roundtable Discussion: Where is the Handheld Version of Console Wars?

Joe Keiser — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Roundtable Discussion takes the intrepid 61FPS blogging team and pits it against itself in the search for deeper truth. The moderator for today is Joe Keiser.

Towards the end of the last roundtable, the topic swerved off-course into a discussion of the existence or nonexistence of handheld wars. I thought that the fact that question came up was interesting, because no matter how you parse it handheld fanboy battles seem to lack the vigor of their console cousins.

Which brings us to the question: do people have less of an emotional attachment to their portable systems compared to their TV-tethered ones? A different kind of emotional investment? Why do you think this could (or could not) be the case?

Joe: You can tell by the wording of the question that I do think people have less of an emotional investment in handhelds. The reason here is intentional marketing tactics perpetrated by Nintendo over decades, particularly at children. Handhelds are more populist—they're cheap and everyone has them, as proven by Game Boy and DS sales. But consoles, to kids, are a "prestige product"—they're more expensive, and the kid that has one is lucky as all hell. How could you possibly be more emotionally invested in your little Game Boy when everyone wants to come to your house to play Pokemon Stadium on your Nintendo 64? Which piece of hardware would you love more?

Since Nintendo has dominated handhelds for decades, this "little brother to console" marketing informs the whole culture.

Derrick: I totally agree with you, Joe, about the prestige issue. But personally it's all about what I play the most. In college, I loved the Gamecube more than the Gameboy Advance because I was at the dorm a lot and playing games socially in the living room was more exciting than private portable gaming. These days, I play my DS and iPod Touch a lot more than my Wii and PS3 because I spend several hours a day on trains. When I am home, I'm watching TV, eating and sleeping, so the consoles only get love when I make a vested effort to do so.

Cole: I've never owned a handheld, for several reasons. One is that I've always sort of felt that handhelds could only offer severely limited versions of what was available on consoles at the time (This has changed only recently). I think that because a lot of people have a general understanding that portables offer less than the cutting edge, they are not as committed to defending their preferred portable's capabilities.

Derrick: That tech lag is important, but there’s no denying that today’s portables are impressive little machines. Super Mario 64 DS looks much better than Super Mario 64—in fact, I’m surprised Nintendo hasn’t ported more N64 games. For that matter, Sega said the iPhone/Touch is as powerful as a Dreamcast. Handhelds these days are just as fast and pretty as consoles one or two generations ago with the benefit of portability. That’s a sort of cutting edge, isn’t it?

Cole: Yes, but with home consoles it's all about who's the fastest, prettiest, etc. We all know that portable systems are far behind, so in a way it's not worth bickering over when there are bigger windmills against which to charge.

Joe: Conceding for now that the technology might not be worth fighting for, it’s still interesting to keep in mind that other little gizmos, like cell phones, do have fan boy battles--at least if my teenage brother's endless quest for the smallest and flashiest new handset is any indication. Strange how the people who fight about this kind of stuff are avoiding that "small is the new big" fight to focus on the length and girth of their console's horizontal pixel resolution.

Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes for iPhone

Amber: I also think that in the case of "handheld wars" consumers take their cues from the companies. When Sega's marketing for its portable was attacking Gameboy, fans followed suit. However, when it became clear it was not a contest, Sega stopped pushing and fans stopped caring. The same thing came about when Sony was making its PSP push.

It's not too hard to buy multiple portable systems if you really want too. The cost isn't as prohibitive so there's less of a monetary reason to be protective of a singular purchase. Also, Nintendo's utter dominance takes some of the wind out of the sails of your handheld ship of war. Fan fights flare up when a contender steps onto the floor, but fade out when it becomes clear the title belt isn't going to change hands.

Bob: I fall mostly into Amber’s school of thought; when it comes to handhelds, Nintendo has been so absolutely dominant that portable console wars are entirely moot. The only time I really remember any kind of battle was back in Sega’s more aggressive marketing days, when they were touting the colorful graphics of the Game Gear over the pea soup-green aesthetic of the Game Boy. But we all know that the original Game Boy stuck around for a solid 10 years (the Pocket and Color models helped it hang on), pretty much erasing the history of any other competitor. For this reason, there’s really no precedent for a handheld console war, so I think the desire to start one never occurs.

Amber: But the fans are there. They may not be as volatile as they are for consoles, but bring up a subject like Apple challenging the DS with its iPhone line and you'll find fans jumping to attack and defend on both sides.

Previous Roundtable Discussions:

Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 1
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 2
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 3

Apple Doesn’t Understand Genius, Blocks Yoot Saito’s Gabo

Joe Keiser — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Bad news from the desk of mad developer Yoot Saito, everyone: according to a rough translation of his latest blog entry, his creepy virtual pet peking man sim Gabo is being blocked from the Apple App Store, allegedly for being too “unpleasant.”

This rubs me all over the wrong way, and not just because Yoot Saito’s strange gaming visions (his oeuvre includes the emotionally abusive talking fish simulator Seaman AND the voice-activated pinball RTS Odama, you’ll recall) deserve to be shared with all. What really bothers me is that Apple has apparently—and take this with a grain of salt, because the translation is admittedly not 100% clear on the subject—drawn a line in the sand as to what sorts of game content is and isn’t okay. Now, it is Apple’s Store, but any line that keeps out Gabo while allowing in the hordes of apps that just make fart noises might actually be too warped and curved to be called a “line.”

Click through to see a video of what we’ll be missing, as well as the silver lining around this cloud of shame.

This was more or less going to be a portable version of the Japanese-only PS2 game Seaman 2: The Peking Man Rearing Kit. The worst part is, the iPhone game was finished!

Fortunately, there is some good news: Saito ended his post on an up note, stating that the DS version of Seaman is currently in active development. We’re now taking odds on that coming stateside.

Related Links:

iPhone Owners are Gamers, Idiots
The iPhone As Your "Dark Passenger"
I’ll Tell You When I’ve Had Enough!

Whatcha Playing: Feintly Familiar

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Way back in the summer, when the iTunes App Store officially launched, iPhone owners were inundated with hundreds of sloppy applications and poorly constructed games. It was understandable, very few platforms have quality applications so early in their lifespan. There were a few surprisingly solid apps, though, that found their supportive base. One of the first games to really endear itself to JesusPhone users was Aurora Feint: The Beginning.

Here's the high-concept: the match-three puzzle play of Nintendo's Puzzle League plus the RPG character-building of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords with touch and tilt controls thrown in. If that sounds deliciously addictive to you, you're right.

I'd read about Aurora Feint months ago, but I only got around to downloading it and playing around with it this past weekend. As a big fan of both of the above mentioned puzzlers, Aurora Feint instantly had me hooked. In order to fit your finger, the play field is smaller than that of Puzzle League, so it's a bit harder to pull of massive chains and combos. It also doesn't have the competative head-to-head aspect of either "Puzzle" game. What it does have is compelling casual fun. Just playing in "The Mine" (essentially "Endless" mode) allows you to level up, increasing the number of magicbooks and blueprints available in the "store". Blueprints are taken to the Smith and turned into time attack challenges to introduce special item tiles into the playfield and magicbooks open limited-move puzzles (exactly like Puzzle League's "Puzzle" mode) that multiply the resources collected for each colored tile.

For fans of action puzzlers like Tetris, Puzzle League and Rotohex, Aurora Feint is very likely to please. The Beginning is a great place to start, especially as its free. That's right, pay nothing. If you like that enough, there are three versions of Aurora Feint II now available on the App Store with improved graphics and new features. The biggest of the bunch, The Arena, includes new character classes, online leaderboards, online chat and offline dueling (which really seems essential, considering the atmosphere of the game as a feudal sorcery RPG), but that version will set you back eight bucks. Thankfully, you can transfer your built-up character from Aurora Feint: The Beginning over to The Arena, so your time grinding away in the freeware version won't be wasted if you upgrade.

Previously:
Myst III: Exile
Persona, Fallout, and the Trans-Pacific RPG Ideal
Holiday Blessings... and Curses
On The Road Again
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

Katamari Christmas - Rediscovering the Cosmos... Twice

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:30:00 GMT

December 23rd, I'm home for the holidays, as are both of my sisters. I am just finishing my self-appointed task of the morning by clearing 100% of the Chroma Dam in de Blob when my elder sister asks what the gameplay is like and if she can learn. I begin to describe and then compare the feeling to that of Katamari Damacy. She is intrigued. I hand her the case to the original Katamari Damacy for Playstation 2. Her eyes light up as she pages through the manual. "Can I play this one?" "Sure." I turn off the Wii and go to make some tea. "Can I play it now?" "Oh, um...yeah, okay!"

A bit of background very quickly. My sister is not an avid gamer, but she is also not a n00b. She is at present the typical "casual" gamer. She plays Brain Age, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Scrabulous, but to the best of my memory she has not touched a traditional platformer since the original Super Mario Bros. And now here she was, playing a cult-hit Japanese game that required not one analog stick, but two!

Watching her play for the first time was a perfect case study in Katamari exposure: at first cautious of the unusual controls, then frustrated by the immense destructive properties of tiny household objects, then delighted to begin picking up the same objects that had once thwarted her, gradually gaining more and more control over her ball of junk. She yelped with excitement when first able to roll through a LEGO house, collecting each individual brick. She fumed at the King of All Cosmos and wondered aloud about the game designer's daddy issues. She began bopping and humming along with the notoriously upbeat and charming soundtrack. She failed at challenges repeatedly and exclaimed "One more time!", increasing her ball's size each attempt until completing the star to father's insincere approval. Her continued excitement over the game drew us all in, and soon enough our entire family was watching my sister roll up every scrap of household junk in the Takeda household.

She played the game every opportunity she had over the next five days. Mostly just making bigger and bigger stars, but occassionally the constellation challenges and a long morning of head-to-head multiplayer against our younger sister and me. When she started routinely kicking my butt in multiplayer, it was clear she'd fully wrapped her head around the game controls and mechanics, which unlike pretty much every other game out there are almost entirely unique to this franchise and unseen in games that don't include the word "katamari" in their title. She asked repeatedly if there was a version for DS or Wii so she could play it at home. When I said "not yet," she was relieved, knowing that owning a Katamari game of her own might result in never going to work again.

Inspired by this rediscovery of the modern classic (and some newly acquired iTunes gift cards), I downloaded the new I Love Katamari game (shown at left) onto my iPod Touch. It plays just like the Playstation version, only with tilt and touch controls and smaller environments. And it is fantastic. "Why doesn't everybody know about this game?" my sister asked, Dualshock controller back in hand. "I love it so much!"

So, Namco, I know you've been hearing thing for a while now, but you should really release a Katamari game for the Wii. The tilt controls from the iPod version would translate splendidly to a sideways Wiimote (with the minimal other controls mapped to the buttons), the bright, happy aesthetic will fit in wonderfully on the Wii, and casual gamers like my sister will absolutely buy and play the sweet heck out of it once made aware of what the game is. Strong word of mouth made the series a hit on other platforms, and that should carry over to the Wii as well, but there's a huge audience of Wii Fit and Guitar Hero players out there who've never heard of Katamari Damacy and would love it if given the opportunity.

Related Articles:
Katamari in the Classroom Part 1
Katamari in the Classroom Part 2
What Games Actually Appeal To Casual Gamers
What The Hell Does Casual Mean?

Trailer Review: Edge

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Take a gander at this trailer for Edge, the new iPhone/iPod Touch game released today by mobile phone game developer mobigame and feel the waves of nostalgia for a game you've never even played.

In its presentation, Edge is equal parts Marble Madness, Q*Bert, and Tron, but it clearly has potential to be ever so much more.

Beautiful isometric geometry, subtle use of color, a soundtrack halfway between 80's new wave and contemporary chiptune, Edge may very well be the stylish iPod counterpart to artsy downloadable console titles like Eden, Everyday Shooter, echochrome, Orbient and Cubello.

As I mentioned above, Edge was just released on the App Store today. As I've been on a serious gaming binge on my iPod Touch lately, I'll be sure to check this one out, but damn is that trailer stylish!

Related articles:
Overworld: Marble Madness
iPhone Owners Are Gamers, Idiots
The Original Adventure - Now Portable
Ports That Need To Be Made: iTouchRez

Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 2

Derrick Sanskrit — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Missed part 1? Click here!

9 - Space Invaders Extreme (DS/PSP):
One of the most iconic arcade games of all time crossed its 30th anniversary this year, and to celebrate they reinvented the whole damn thing. We've seen this before, but Space Invaders Extreme was different. How? It was flippin' awesome this time. Bright colors and flashing lights, sound effects that sync with the club-ready music, new power-ups and new aggressive enemies, Space Invaders Extreme turned the arcade classic into an underground rave of interplanetary destruction. And, as I already said, its flippin' awesome. I prefer the DS version, but both are great, and for the bargain price of $19.99 there's really no reason not to pick up this addictive portable reimagining.

8 - newtonica (iPhone/iPod Touch):
Kenichi Nishi's debut game for Apple's "gaming device" multi-touch widescreen iPod is sheer casual bliss. There is a ball and you can spin it with a flick of your finger. Cubes fall toward the ball and you get points by lining up the ball so the blocks fall in the appropriately colored areas. Don't strain your brain too hard, there's only two colors. The first ten minutes of play are stress-free and easy, but soon enough the speed and frequency of falling blocks increases to the point of insanity and the slow relaxing game has turned vicious and intense. Charming. Addictive. Very easy to lose track of time and surroundings when played. Oh, and a soundtrack by Kenji Eno. That's an awesome game.

7 - Professor Layton & The Curious Village (DS):
Level 5's logic-puzzle festival was a truly unique gaming experience. It marked the first time ever that both my little sister and I completed the same game from start to finish within a week. This is not to say that the game is short, rather that the game is engrossing for players of all ages and paths. Solve one quaint puzzle after another, every now and then coming across one that truly adjusts the way you're thinking and fills you with a sense of wonder and excitement upon completion and eager to find the next puzzle. Couple that with a surprisingly deep narrative and absolutely gorgeous animated cutscenes and you have one of the shining gems of an already very impressive DS library. Now what's it gonna take to release the two sequels outside of Japan?

6 - Boom Blox (Wii):
Who would have thought that the debut game from Stephen Spielberg's development deal with Electronic Arts would turn out to be my go-to party game? Got a bunch of friends over? Pop Boom Blox in your Wii and fire up a few Wiimotes. Gamers and nongamers alike will pick up the controls in a matter of minutes and everyone in the room becomes captivated, watching blox fall and explode and crazy little critters jump and shout. Arms will be made sore and remotes will be passed to other people who were watching but not playing and the whole thing keeps going until everyone is worn out and needs a nap. This is what happened on my birthday, this is what happened at a friend's housewarming, this is what happened at Thanksgiving, and this is probably what will happen again at Christmas. Boom Blox, while fun enough as a single player game, is THE killer multi-player title for the Wii.

Part 1
Part 3

Related Articles:
Bob's Top Ten Games of 2008: Audiosurf, Braid
Time Magazine's Top 10 Games of 2008
Action Button's Top 25 Games Ever

Derrick's Top 13 Games of 2008 - Part 1

Derrick Sanskrit — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Yes, it's that most wonderful time of the year, when we make our lists and check them twice. As Bob and Cole have already pointed out, annual Top 10 game lists are popping up all over the place. I started organizing my own list over a month ago and had a very hard time leaving a few games out (come on, it was a pretty damn good year for games), and since thirteen has been my lucky number since the third grade I am now proud to present my own personal Top 13 Games of 2008, brought to you in three managable installments. Hopefully there'll be a little something for everyone. Let's get this party started:

13 - rRootage (iPhone/iPod Touch, ported from PC):
You know what I always loved about the classic top-down shooters? Those huge, insane, too-many-flying-objects-on-screen-at-once boss fights. Wouldn't it be great if someone made a game that was just that? Oh, and if it were portable - fit right in my pocket. And it would be so sweet if I could play it with just one or two fingers and listen to whatever music I wanted to while I played. Yeah, that sure would be a dream. Oh wait... somebody made that game? And it's free? Woah...

12 - No More Heroes (Wii):
There's little I can say about No More Heroes that hasn't already been exuberantly exclaimed by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Goichi Suda is a game auteur, the Quentin Tarantino to Shigeru Miyamoto's Stephen Spielberg, and No More Heroes is his Woo Ping techno-punk black comedy Grand Theft Auto satire. Possibly most impressively, it was an M-rated Wii game that stood gloriously by itself as being unique, completely worthwhile, and in no way a weak sequel or spin-off of an otherwise beloved franchise (see Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Manhunt 2 and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon).

11 - Ace Attorney Apollo Justice (DS):
The first "true" DS Ace Attorney game (the Phoenix Wright trilogy were all GBA ports, minus the fifth case in the first game, tech demo for what would become Apollo Justice) did just about everything right: delightfully quirky characters, greatly improved graphics and sound, engaging new forensic investigation tools and a solidly engaging storyline. The only real problems were that the story ultimately paled in comparison to the edge-of-your-seat emotional thrill ride of predecessor Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations and that the game still feels far too short. Sure, you get your money's worth and a decidedly more compelling "game" than its predecessors thanks to more interactive elements, but even a game twice as long wouldn't satisfy my craving for Ace Attorney action. TAKE THAT!

10 - WiiFit (Wii):
The quintessential non-game of 2008, WiiFit had high expectations all around and shattered every single one of them. Bringing WiiFit home opened my living room to sights I'd never seen before, an exercise program that people legitimately wanted to play. Even when I wasn't playing, I was thinking about how my daily actions would be reflected on my next body test, striving for a high score in the form of a low BMI. I'm noticeably leaner and healthier than I was eight months ago and I had a lot of fun doing it, even feeling competitive at times. In my mind, that makes WiiFit a game, and a damn good one too.

Part 2
Part 3

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iPhone Owners are Gamers, Idiots

Joe Keiser — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Apple has revealed the top ten best-selling iPhone applications, and it’s, um, a pretty weird list. For starters, it’s book ended by pure stupidity. The best selling application, the software more iPhone owners have paid for than any other, is…Koi Pond. An interactive fish screensaver. Number 10 is iBeer—yeah, you’ll just have to watch the video for that one.

But let’s get past that, because in between those two moronic apps is a creamy center that’s 60 percent games. Super Monkey Ball’s in there, as are three racing games: Cro-Mag Rally, Moto Chaser, and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. Rounding out the list is the top-selling card game Texas Hold’em and charming puzzler Enigmo.

It’s great to see a strange and abstract game like Enigmo on this list. It’s also impressive to see that the highest-priced thing on there (Super Monkey Ball, which is eight dollars) is also a game. Forget the speculation, because now that the numbers are in, the iPhone actually does look like a burgeoning little handheld console. And, judging by the other things that are popular, a console that isn’t for people who play other sorts of games.

I noticed this a few days ago when a girl I’ve known for a while, and one who has never been particularly into games, whipped out her iPhone to show me games I’d never heard of before. Me, a person who knows which Nintendo DS game about princesses shares its name with an early 2000s hip-hop album*. This is not the sort of thing that happens to me very often.

Do I think that the likes of Nintendo should be worried? Yes, actually. Look at how old the DS is getting, with only the stopgap DSi coming out anytime soon. Look at how much cheaper the iPhone’s games are—Moto Chaser sometimes sells for a buck, which on the DS will get you 2/3rds of a stylus. And if anyone can find Nintendo’s lifestyle brand cachet, it’s Apple. Hell, you can make a pretty strong argument that Nintendo stole all the ideas that got it that cachet, from Apple.

I really wish there were actual sales numbers to look at here—not least of all so I could know how many people to laugh at for buying iBeer. But even without them, this looks pretty damn good.

*My World, My Way. I guess I cheated a little, since the game in question won’t be out till next February, but you get the idea.

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The Original Adventure - Now Portable

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The Atari 2600's Adventure holds several special places in gaming history. It was the first game to allow the main character to carry and use objects without entering a menu or command, it infamously featured gaming's very first easter egg, and, as the title implies, it was the first ever action-adventure game for a video game console, paving the way for The Legend of Zelda and countless others.

Well now the first ever action-adventure video game is available for the iPhone/iPod Touch. And its free. Go experience some video game history right now.

The game is tilt-controlled and you touch the screen to drop whatever item you're carrying. Gameplay is smooth and the flat pixel graphics are perfectly crisp. It's hi-def lo-fi portable retro gaming. You can even adjust the dragons' behavior and turn on and off a rumble function in the application's settings. My favorite feature, though, is that gameplay does not disrupt your iPod's audio playback, so you can create your own soundtrack to the classic game (and we all know how much I love doing that).

Of course, my test session with Adventure was backed by Adventure's 2008 album Adventure...and it was divine. Try it, I implore you.

Illustration taken from my friend Dave Roman's hilarious comic strip interpretation of Adventure. Read the whole thing here.

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Act Fast! Free Hudson iPhone Games Right Now!

Derrick Sanskrit — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

In celebration of the Tokyo Game Show (which ends today), Hudson Soft, makers of such wonderful games as Bomberman, Adventure Island, and Mario Party, among others, have made three of their games on the iTunes App Store FREE, but only for the length of the show (which, again, ends TODAY). If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I strongly urge you to navigate over to the iTunes App Store (or just click the links below the break) ASAP and download these high-quality games without paying for them. Free mobile gaming! Does life get any better than this?

Aqua Forest
Use the accelerometer to solve puzzles with realistic physics, then use the touch screen to draw your own puzzles!

NeoSameGame
The classic remove-similarly-colored-touching-blocks puzzle game, with new modes added for tilt and shake features.

Catch The Egg
Use the iPhone/iPod Touch's advanced gyroscope to catch falling eggs. Be careful, though, too soft or too hard and you might break the egg in your hand. Definitely keep a good grip on your iPhone/iPod for this one.

I've only just played each of them once, so while I can't speak to the long-lasting fun to be had in each, I can assure you that they are well-polished and easily worth your zero dollars. Go! Go now!

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Ports That Need To Be Made: iTouchRez

Derrick Sanskrit — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The news last week that Q Entertainment would be bringing its popular handheld titles Meteos to XBox Live Arcade and Lumines to Playstation Network got me to thinking about what other Q titles could use ports to new platforms. Far and away, the best idea to come out of this meandering train of thought was this:

Rez, for the iPhone and iPod Touch, or as I like to call it iTouchRez.

Haptic feedback with variable control for vibration on/off.

Touch screen shooting. There's no need to ever move the character, just the aiming reticule, perfect for fingertips.

Sega of America President Simon Jeffery has already stated that the current iPhone is as powerful as the Dreamcast, Rez's original platform.

The iPhone is already a widescreen hi-def video/audio player, perfect for the intense and immersive audiovisual experience of Rez.

Rez was rereleased earlier this year in an HD update on XBox Live Arcade to wide critical acclaim, so the interest is definitely still there. I think this portable port would quite possibly be the easiest way to lose an entire train ride in a trance. Tetsuta Mizuguchi, make this happen!

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You Got Your Waggle In My Touch Screen Portable!

Derrick Sanskrit — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

You may remember back in May when Activision CEO Mike Griffith stated that the next Tony Hawk game would be a Nintendo DS exclusive and "utilizes new technology not yet seen on the DS." According to a press release sent yesterday by Activision, that game is Tony Hawk's Motion, which proudly announces it will use the Motion Pack for accelerometer-based game control. That's great and all, but why is this the first we've heard of the "Motion Pack"? The press release casually mentions it as if it were some peripheral we were all already familiar with. All we can gather about it from the press release is that it adds an accelerometer - the same kind of gyroscope that's in the Wii remote and iPhone - to the DS.

Obviously, the Motion Pack is the big selling feature, what with "Motion" right there in the game's title, but the package promises variety as well with an all new Todd Richards Pro Snowboarder mode and a whole 'nother game packed in as Hue Pixel Painter: an "action-oriented puzzler" "uncovering sources of paint below the ground’s surface" and "bringing color back to a dreary environment and defending against the Drabs who have set out to leave the world gray and bland." So it's de Blob?

The two games are set to come packed together this November for the MSRP of $39.99, a bit steeper than your average AAA DS title, but hey, it's two games and we can only assume the Motion Pack comes packed in as well. We can only assume, of course, because we haven't heard anything else about it yet.

The idea of motion-control on the DS has been widely discussed ever since the Wii first waggled onto the scene, so I'm not surprised to see someone doing something about it, but I can't help but wonder is this a worthwhile gimmick? The DS has seen plenty of innovation already. The variety of input methods and controls in games like The World Ends With You, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Electroplankton are astounding, far greater than many gamers believed possible on a handheld. Playing through each of those surprised me and made me begin to wonder what else was possible on the DS that I just hadn't seen yet. How well will the game play when you are constantly tilting the whole system, including the screens you're supposed to look at? Who knows? It's only slightly awkward with WarioWare Twisted, but I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Other good news is that Tony Hawk Motion/Hue Pixel Painter is not being developed by Neversoft, the company responsible for the distillation and monotony of past Tony Hawk and Spider-Man games, as well as the recent Guitar Heroes, but rather by CREAT Studios, bringers of Insecticide for the DS and Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Pro-Am for the PS2... so yeah, there's that.

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Kenichi Nishi and Kenji Eno’s Newtonica Brings iPhone Gaming Into the Realm of Awesome

John Constantine — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

I have been, in general, pretty resistant to the iPhone mania that’s overtaken many hundreds of thousands of folks. They’re attractive little devices but, well, them things are expensive. Plus, it remains to be seen whether or not it will come into its own as a gaming platform. The version of Spore Maxis has cooked up looks like a neat diversion but not many other games seem particularly interesting. For example, a friend of mine downloaded Super Monkey Ball and told me that when the game wasn’t crashing his iPhone, it was a chore to actually control anything. Newtonica, a new game from the ever fertile mind of Kenichi Nishi, now has me chomping at the bit to actually hand over some cashey money to Steve Jobs. Why? For starters, Nishi was the field designer on Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger, the founder of Love-De-Lic, and the designer of Skip’s Chibi-Robo. That’s what you call a pedigree right there. Also? Newtonica’s soundtrack is by Kenji Eno. As I recently discovered, Kenji Eno rules. Looks like the actually gameplay, not dissimilar to the Bit Generations title Orbital which Nishi also had a hand in, will be a hoot too.

Core Gamers has an interview with Nishi that’s worth a read so go check it out already.

As always, much love to Eegra’s Patrick Alexander who alerted me to Newtonica’s awesome existence. That said, damn you for making me want an iPhone, Patrick.

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The iPhone As Your "Dark Passenger"

Derrick Sanskrit — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:30:00 GMT

This past weekend's San Diego Comic-Con brought more than a few bits of game news, both anticipated and completely unexpected, but arguably one of the biggest surprises was the announcement of an episodic game based on Showtime's original series Dexter coming exclusively to Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. Yeah, that Dexter. Finally, you'll be able to kill people on the subway and get away with it!

Not much is known about the game beyond this announcement, only that it will incorporate text messages and phone calls for a more immersive experience and – of course – gesture controls... you know, for... um... slicing people up after you've brutally murdered them. Since that's all we know about the game right now, I've gone to the liberty of coming up with a few more ideas of how the iPhone's features could make Dexter a truly immersive gaming experience:

– Use the iPhone's accelerometer to virtually bludgeon your victims into submission. Red flashes on the screen indicate that you're doing it too hard. An audible grunt/sigh from the speaker indicates a successful knock-out!

– Shout into the iPhone microphone to intimidate your victims into admitting their heinous crimes.

– Leave the game idle on your desk with Google Maps open to simulate long, uneventful stakeouts.

– Call your sister regularly to talk about how difficult her life is.

– Hold off important work-related text messages and voicemail until the really interesting parts of the game, so you have to quit and wait until next time to find out what happens.

– Batista has dragged you to the bar again! Let your fingers do the awkward dancing in a DDR-style touchscreen minigame.

– Use that 3G network to learn Spanish.

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Gamer Caskets Rob Your Grave (of Dignity!)

Cole Stryker — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:00:00 GMT

You thought guys getting Master Chief tattoos were weird, how about a Halo or GTA IV coffin? Perhaps the ultimate expression of brand loyalty, a themed coffin is an excellent way to remind your surviving loved ones that what little identity you had on this earth was wrapped up in a hunk of plastic and metal.

In an effort to reach out to gamers, Creative Coffins has mocked up a few designs that will appeal to tech fetishists, including Microsoft Vista and iPhone themes. Environmentally friendly! Quirky! Embarrassing!

Get creative and have yourself entombed in a model of a zombie casket from Return to Castle Wolfenstein or, even better, Alucard's coffin. Or, save the money by having yourself cremated and stuffed into the shell of a Super Nintendo. Either way.

(via T3)

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Sega CD on iPhone: I Like Where This Is Going

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:10:00 GMT

The iPhone is new and exciting. Sega CD games are pretty old, but still kind of exciting. What happens when you put the two together?

I often wish I could go back in time and torment my younger self. I think we'd have some really cool conversations about video games. I mean, who cares about the fact that we've made major medical advancements or that we can travel in space buses (oh shit wait no we can't)? I want my younger self to hear all about how we can play the coveted games of our childhood on our telephones.

Not that I have an iPhone. It's totally because I'm not into that useless capitalist waste. It's not like my mom's the only person who ever calls me.

Sniff.

You know I've never played a Lunar game? I know what I want to see next in the iPhone, thank you. Oh and it must retain the bizarre Working Designs "translation."

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Will Song Summoner Be the First Good iPod Game?

John Constantine — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Square-Enix, they of the beloved, monolithic RPG franchises Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, have quietly released an original strategy RPG for, of all things, the iPod. Even more surprising is how cool it sounds. In Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes, you build an army (Tune Troopers as they’re called in-game) using the songs stored in your iPod. You level your forces through the usual fighting and whatnot but you can also build their stats by listening to the song that created them. That is, frankly, one of the coolest game features I have ever heard of in my entire life.

It’s interesting to hear about such a unique and well-considered game coming out specifically for the iPod, especially in light of the recent announcement of the iPhone’s grand gaming aspirations. Games have been coming out on the iPod for close to two years now, but they’ve been pretty terrible. A little wheel is just not conducive to controlling even the simplest of games; Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are unplayable messes, and the less said about Sonic the Hedgehog the better. Apple’s success with the iPod in Japan, not to mention the slow iPhone sales, certainly has something to do with Square-Enix’s efforts on the platform, but it’s still strange.

I’m not sold on gaming for platforms not specifically built for gaming. Cell-phones, iPhones, Blackberries, iPods, etc. aren’t ergonomically sound for videogames. Sure, they’re fine for card or board games, even simple puzzlers like Snood, but anything deeper is a stretch. RPGs do seem like a good fit, but Square-Enix and any other developer throwing their hat in the ring will have to make sure that the game they build is made for very quick, short use.

Do you play games on your iPod? Do you like them? Let us know in the comments