It's hard to describe the Madden series of games as a franchise anymore, they've been around so long it seems that a more appropriate way to describe the games would be the "Madden dynasty." The first Madden game appeared on the Apple II all the way back in 1989, it wasn't until Madden '94 that the real NFL teams were included, and sports gamers would have to wait another year until the real players were added. When you look back at the 20 years these games have been around,
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NaturalMotion once again asks the eternal question of "Are you ready for some football?" with the announcement of Backbreaker Football: Tackle Alley, an iPhone game based on a mini-game from Backbreaker, a game currently in development for the XBOX 360 and PS3. The game takes advantage of "morpheme", NaturalMotion's iPhone graphics engine which allegedly "produces animation of a quality not seen before on the iPhone and iPod Touch providing the on-screen characters with a fluidity of motion rivaling that experienced on home consoles."
The iPhone version of the game is being developed by Ideaworks3D, the company behin
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While EA may have a complete monopoly on NFL games on home consoles, the App Store is wide open for competition between industry giants Gameloft and EA who both have rights to the complete NFL franchise on the iPhone. In what quite obviously is a warning shot across the bow of the U.S.S. Madden battleship, Gameloft sent us these screenshots this afternoon complete with some details on what is coming in the next NFL 2010 [App Store] update that should be live in the next one or two weeks.
The official NFL RSS feed has been integrated in to the main menu, it
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Since the announcement in late March, sports fans have been anxiously anticipating the Madden series jumping to the iPhone. We still don't know when it's going to be released outside of sometime in September, these three screenshots should whet your appetite:
Here are a collection of games that have generated positive reviews in our forums, and are worth considering.
Aqua Globs
Another game with a path tracing mechanic, but this time you are combining like globs with each other in order to eliminate them from the screen. Blue globs can only combine with Blue globs and Orange with Orange. Meanwhile Green globs can combine with either Orange or Blue. If a Blue and Orange collide, you lose a life and get only 3 lives per game.
After a lot of disappointing efforts, I’ve finally found a good iPhone mini golf game with Glu Mobile's Mini Golf Wacky Worlds [$2.99], a fantasy golf game that delivers some creatively designed golf courses that are as fun as they are challenging.
The first thing that strikes you is the 3D visuals and the bright colors. Mini Golf Wacky Worlds seems to exude the idea of fun, which is essential to a game like this. The 3D animation tends to be smooth, although I did have an occasional lag here and there on my iPod Touch 2G 3.0.
Surprisingly enough, Gameloft's NFL 2010 [App Store] came out tonight, only a couple days after it was first revealed. It truly is the App Store's first full football simulation, complete with NFL teams, players, and stadiums.
Inside the game are four modes of play: Quick Play, which just tosses you in to a game with your favorite team (set in t
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Backflip Studios' Paper Toss World Tour [App Store] finally got approved and is now available for download. Utilizing the same strangely appealing gameplay element of the free Paper Toss [App Store], World Tour takes the show on the road across 8 exotic locales.
Darkside Entertainment is really on to something here with their amazingly simple yet surprisingly fun game of marbles. Titled simply Play Marbles [App Store], the game offers a large amount of content, game modes and customization.
Play Marbles plays exactly like playing marbles as a kid. Three different variations of play are included, Ri
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Some of our readers have been waiting for a game just like Moto X Mayhem [$1.99] from Occamy Games. The game is a faster-paced version of various physics bike games that have already appeared in the app store and resembles many of the popular Flash dirt bike games. In fact, this version seems near identical to TeaGames' TG Mot
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We gave some quick impressions of Touch KO immediately after its release, but have since been able to spend some time to play through the game. As we mentioned before, the game offers an impressive looking boxing game for your iPhone.
Touch KO's multi-touch controls are surprisingly comfortable and an in-game tutorial walks you through the moves. Tapping either the left or right side of the screen punches with that arm, and different gestures like swiping towards the center lets loose a hook, while swiping upwards throws an uppercut. Holding your thumb on either side of the screen blocks with that arm, and tilting the iPhone makes you dodge. The controls are rather easy to pick up an
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Backflip Studios' Paper Toss [App Store] has even surprised the developers with its own popularity. Since the game's release, it has been hovering around the top-end of the top 100 downloaded free games with over 6 million total downloads.
Offering a fun and extremely simple gameplay element that anyone who has ever worked in an office knows all too well, Paper Toss has you literally tossing paper in to a garbage can. It's not that easy though, in this virtual office your coworkers are constantly changing the location and speed of a small fan, so you have wind
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Konami, better known for its Metal Gear and Silient Hill series, has just released Power Pros Touch [link] through the App Store, an adaptation of its popular Wii and PS2 baseball title MLB Power Pros, for the iPhone and iPod touch.
MLB Power Pros is a cartoonish take on the sport featuring cute, bobble-headed players in keeping with the style of the heretofore Japanese-only Power Pro series, which made its debut in 1994.
The game is very well reviewed, with Gamespot concluding,
Simply put, get the game for whichever system you play the most. It's a fantastic cho
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You can almost hear the groans coming when you start talking about a "casual" sports game. Somewhere along the way, the term "casual" has become a euphemism for "crappy mini". But Com2US's Baseball Slugger [App Store] is a notable exception and is a really fun game for both sports and non-sports fans alike.
The game is structured as a home run derby. You must hit as many home runs as possible before a designated number of outs is achieved. Simple goal, but Baseball Slugger shines in 3 differe
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Last month we took a look at Naquatic's Touch Ski 3D, an iPhone touch-screen skiing game that we found to be a very well done, simple title with an interesting control mechanic. At both its initial $0.99 and $2.99 regular price, it represented a solid value and was a great ticket for on-the-go fun on the slopes.
The California-based, two-brother team has just released a huge update to the already great title: Touch Ski 3D v2.0 [App Store]. And, while the first release was really two ga
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As mentioned in our previous post, Tiger Woods PGA Tour is a golf game of the realistic, simulation sort as opposed to the more casual golf titles, such as one can readily find on the Nintendo Wii platform. If realism, as opposed to bouncy music, rainbow colors, and enlarged heads is your thing, then you're in EA's target audience on this one. (And that's not to say that the more festive variety of golf titles are to be discounted — we love Gameloft's Let's Golf, for instance.)
MLB.com has released an official Major League Baseball World Series 2009 game into the App Store [link]. The $7.99 offers players an officially licensed product featuring 30 Major League Clubs and four MLB ballparks.
Game features include:
Multi-Touch Pitching Mechanics – Choose between fastball, curve, change-up or slider and swipe correctly to execute the perfect pitch
Accelerometer Targeting: Tilt the device to aim your pitch and line up your swing.
World Series mode, Season mode, Exhibition mode
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iPhone developer Naquatic has just released Touch Ski 3D [App Store], a touch-screen iPhone skiing game that's a good time on the slopes for $0.99.
Touch Ski 3D makes use of the iPhone's multitouch capabilities by providing individual ski control — one finger per ski. When the skis are held parallel (about one inch apart), the score counter glows green and it's full speed down the slope, but when they're held either together or apart, travel down the mountain slows.
Touch Ski 3D is really two games in one. A Race mode challenges the player to complete a dow
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Fuel Industries has released Vans SK8: Pool Service [App Store] to the App Store this evening. The title officially licenses the Vans brand and includes real-life skaters Bucky Lasek and Omar Hassan as player options within the game.
We spoke briefly with developer Fuel Industries at GDC about the company and their game. Fuel has been around since 2001 and has had
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We have come such a long way from Steve’s iPhone SDK announcement in late 2007. Even before the official SDK was released, developers were writing simple games. Simple games evolved in to pick up and play examples of gaming perfection like Flight Control [App Store] and Scoops [App Store]. Ambitious developers have even released some great 3D games. But last weekend, Gameloft’s Let’s Golf [... Read more »
The Code Monkeys Ltd is a very long running game developer who has been around since 1988. Their extensive gaming library includes a number titles ranging from the Nintendo DS and PSP and reaching back into the PS2, Gameboy, Atari ST and even the Sinclair Timex. And now they've just released their first entry into the Apple iPhone with Triple Shot Sports [App Store]. The $2.99 game follows the style of their
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Last week Cowboy Rodeo released an iPhone version of Digital Illusions' classic 1992 Amiga pinball game Pinball Dreams [link] through the App Store. We took a close look at the game and found it to be a superb conversion of an excellent pinball simulator and likely the best pinball experience to be found on the iPhone. Our readers have voiced extremely positive opinions of the game in both our review comments and our forums.
When Pinball Dreams was released the developer indicated that if sales were solid, both of Digital Illusions' se
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Pinball fans take note, Cowboy Rodeo has ported Digital Illusions' classic Amiga pinball game Pinball Dreams to the iPhone and iPod touch.
Pinball Dreams was an extremely well received game when it debuted on the Amiga back in 1992. It took full advantage of the Amiga's (then) powerful graphics hardware and offered a realism and playability rarely–if ever–seen before in a computer-based pinball game. A British reviewer of the Amiga version well describes the significance of the title on the platform.
Just in time for Superbowl Sunday, Macworld has posted a roundup of the current football games that can be found in the App Store.
Macworld had already given high marks for LED Football [App Store] and LED Football 2 [App Store], but also took a look at these remaining titles in their roundup:
Artificial Life has announced an exclusive deal with Red Bull Air Race to produce 3D mobile games that simulate the increasingly popular air sports competition.
In the Red Bull Air Race World Championship the world’s best pilots compete in a high speed race against the clock, navigating low-level aerial tracks and flying between air-filled pylons known as ‘Air Gate
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Real Football (Soccer) 2009 [App Store] is the first football (soccer) game to hit the iPhone and it was certainly worth the wait.
For fans of games such as Pro Evolution and FIFA on the Playstation/PC this games feels slightly towards the FIFA end of the spectrum. That said, even for a fan of Pro
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So says mobile developer FinBladeof its recently released iPhone sports title Tennis Slam[App Store] that aspires to bring the award winning gameplay of the Wii favorite to you
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Swedish game developer Resolution Interactive has released a preview of their forthcoming flight / action / sports hybrid Clusterball 2.
Clusterball 2 for the iPhone is a conversion of the developer's existing PC title (pictured) and offers unique, fast-paced gameplay that, as the demonstration video illustrates, translates well to the iPhone's accelerometer-based control systems.
Clusterball is a high-paced, adrenaline pumping flight sport demanding skill, tactics and ball control – designed as a first person shooter but without the splatter and gore. Played in midair with high te
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When I saw Try This Networks' Putt Putt Golf [App Store] appear in the App Store, I thought our hopesfor a proper miniature golf game had been answered.
Developers from WIT Entertainment and Decane have come together to bring several new games to the iPhone platform under an as-yet-undecided brand name.
From the WIT Entertainment folks comes a 3D air hockey game called Balls of Steel for the iPhone. The title is based on the Unity game engine, and is set to debut at the launch of the iTunes App Store in June.
According to the developer,
Balls of Steel is an air hockey like game where the aim is to shoot steel balls on the puck to direct him into the opponents goal. Different computer difficulty levels are available combined with superb graphics
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Gameloft's port of Earthworm Jim is, well, Earthworm Jim. If you're unfamiliar with the game, it originally appeared on the Sega Genesis in 1994, and since then saw ports on numerous platforms soon to be including the XBOX 360 via XBOX Live Arcade, the PS3 via PlayStation Network, and the Wii via WiiWare.
The story begins with a high tech super suit falling from space and landing directly on top of an earthworm named Jim. The suit somehow mutates him in to a larger earthworm capable of controlling its various functions. Jim overhears the villains of the game discussing devious plans regarding Princess What's H
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It didn't take us long to fall in love with Tiger Style's first game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [App Store]. It has a beautiful simplicity to it: you are a spider, and as a spider you spin webs and eat bugs. You can choose to explore the various rooms of Bryce Manor, or you can ignore your surroundings and just go on an insect feeding frenzy.
28 hand drawn levels paired with great music and a clever method of storytelling puts Spider pretty high on my list of personal favorit
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Josh Presseisen from Crescent Moon Games emailed us a heads up this morning of their 3D action RPG set for release sometime in September. Ravensword: The Fallen King has been designed with the iPhone 3GS in mind because of the high polygon count, but will be tuned to also run on previous-generation devices at lower frame rates and without as much graphical eye candy. Reluctant to give too much away, Presseisen compared the game to both Oblivion and Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii.
Tiger Style's first entry into the iPhone market kicks off with this very interesting game description:
You are a spider. One afternoon, you discover an abandoned mansion. Where is the family who lived here? What happened, and why did they leave? Search for clues as you adventure from room to room on the hunt for your next meal.
And the game is as unique as it sounds. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is a beautifully created action (adventure?) game that places you in the role of a spider who must spin webs in order capture enough food to make it to the next level. Use up too much silk between meals and you won't survive.
I’ve always had a fascination with the “escape the room” gaming genre because in many ways, it’s a metaphor for the many hurdles that we may face and our ability to break through them. The concept which involves a degree of logic and ingenuity has been around for more than two decades, and there are more variations than I can imagine. One that caught my attention is iEscaper! – Escape from the Ninja’s Lair [... Read more »
Long time adventure fans will be thrilled to hear that Revolution Software has informed us that they are forming a mobile game division called Revolution Pocket, and the first title to be released through the new division is an iPhone port of the cult-classic adventure Beneath a Steel Sky.
Originally released for the Amiga and DOS in 1994, Beneath a Steel Sky is a sprawling graphical adventure set in Australia in a dystopian future. The story goes like this: the protagonist, Robert, crashed in the Outback as a child and was raised by a group of natives. After growing into an adult, storm-troopers sent from Union Ci
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Following the surprising early accidental release of Resident Evil 4 [App Store] in Japan a few weeks ago, iPhone owning Resident Evil fanatics have been anxiously anticipating its official release. The wait is over, but it will likely take a true Resident Evil fan to appreciate the mobile edition of the game (or, ironically, one who has never played the original).
An on-screen D-Pad controls your movement along with a array of buttons lining the right hand side of the screen that control all of yo
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LucasArts' first entry in the Monkey Island series hit the App Store tonight [$7.99] completely re-imagined with new art, complete voice-overs, and a new live instrumental musical score. Originally released in 1990, and having seen several revisions following the initial release including a port to the Sega CD, this Special Edition of The Secret of Monkey Island [App Store<
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Rob Lemon of Gilded Skull Games dropped us a note about two titles they have in the works for the iPhone. The first is Imp or Oaf?, a quirky guessing game where a portion of an image is shown, and players can either decide if they're looking at an imp or an oaf. Tapping the image zooms out a bit, and scoring is based on how far you needed to zoom out on each image for the round.
While Imp or Oaf? may be too simple to interest core gamers, the art style is closer to what you would expect in a children's book and raises the bar on what we've seen in the past with games aimed at kids. Imp or Oaf? is tentatively
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After a few sleepless nights of following our forums and ngmoco's Twitter, we're finally able to embark on the quest for the Golden Orchid in Rolando 2 [App Store]. Better late than never, Rolando 2 is already off to a great start with overwhelmingly positive reactions from our community.
Rolando 2 comes with 2.5D cell shaded graphics which look wonderful, as well as such a great soundtrack that I hope ngmoco follows Secret Exit's lead with their release of their Zen
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EA's missing link between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 popped up on the App Store this evening, promising a gripping storyline, the ability to unleash a torrent of firepower, and insider information information on upcoming characters in the Mass Effect universe.
Mass Effect Galaxy [App Store] is a game with two parts, arcade style combat and multiple choice conversations. During combat, your character is moved using the accelerometer. Tapping enemies on screens locks on to them and you auto-fire until your target is dead. Enemies return fire with slow moving las
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Chillingo / Tetraedge recently released an iPhone port of the well reviewed island adventure Jules Verne's Return to Mysterious Island [App Store], based on the 1874 novel by the noted French science fiction author.
While not a first-person adventure in the strictest sense of the term, the game features point to point "motion" with a look-anywhere view mechanic reminiscent of Zork Nemesis and Myst III: Exile. In fact, the swipe-t
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Few iPhone games have been as highly anticipated as Gamevil's latest epic RPG, Zenonia [App Store]. Our forums have been swarming over it since we first caught wind of the game at GDC '09, and things only got worse as the beta started and its App Store release approached. But does Zenonia live up to months of hype? There's no question it stands alone in providing over 40 hours of faithful 16-bit era action RPG gameplay, but Zenonia ce
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Chillingo isn't one to sit idly by and watch the grass grow around the App Store. The mobile game studio has a number of titles in development and has recently posted details and video of several not far from release.
Return to Mysterious Island
The upcoming iPhone port of mobile title ... Read more »
Gameloft's much anticipated Assassin's Creed for the iPhone arrived in the App Store [link] tonight. The game is priced at $9.99 and delivers a port of the Nintendo DS version.
The original Assassin's Creed is a popular sandbox-style action-adventure that was first released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. A version of the game called Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles was later released for the Nintendo DS. The DS version of the game is described as
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iPhone publisher Chillingo, who most recently brought us Vector Tanks, has a number of games "in the oven" right now. Among them is an iPhone conversion of the mobile 3D adventure The Quest.
THE QUEST is a graphically stunning, engaging and sinister world full of magic, music and provocative challenges.
Choose from five customizable races and an array of skills, attributes, weapons, armor and enchantments, then explore a huge non-linear realm of four different cities and a wilderness of mountains, caves, lakes and forests.
Play an absorbing card game, solve brain-teasing quests and clash with dangerous opponents in this t
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French Mac development group Coladia is in the process of creating an iPhone version of their Mac release Secret of the Lost Cavern, a prehistoric point-and-click adventure set in 15,000 B.C.
Delve into a world of exploration and intrigue as you embark on a Stone Age quest filled with puzzles and mystery. Use your wits and powers of observation to survive the vast wilderness as your journey leads you to one of mankind’s forgotten wonders.
Experience your adventure through the eyes of Arok and meet many fascinating characters. Contend with the wild world where fishing, hunting, gathering, and mysterious shaman ceremonies are all part of the struggle for survival as you follow the path of yo
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You have to hand it to Gameloft. They have quickly become one of the premiere game developers for the iPhone. Their latest entry into the iPhone game market is Hero of Sparta [App Store] which is best described as a God of War knock-off.
In this $9.99 title, you play King Argos, a Spartan hero, who must battle his way through this epic action-adventure. Your character is controlled in 3rd person perspective with an on-screen analog stick and Block and Attack buttons. The graphics and 3D environment a
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Agharta Studio's interactive adventure 1112 Episode 01 [App Store] has just gone live on the App Store.
We previously highlighted this new game, which appears to be a very ambitious interactive adventure.
Take a journey to explore this intriguing mystery and discover the reasons behind his constant headaches and strange dreams. Meet a bunch of colorful characters, dive into bizarre situations until an u
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Agharta Studio has posted screenshots and info about their upcoming interactive adventure game called 1112.
The game is an interactive adventure which claims to have a deep and rich story full of surprises and twists. The game will be delivered in a series of six episodes. The first episode is expected in the App Store "soon".
The game features hand drawn artwork for the scenes. Players can utilize the iPhone's touch interface to interact with all visible objects (open
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For one day only–today, September 30–Artur Ostapenko's hidden-object adventure game The Stone of Destiny [App Store] is available through the iTunes App Store for $0.99–that's one-tenth it's usual price of $9.99.
If you want to travel to the most beautiful places of the world without leaving your room, then The Stone of Destiny is for you. This fascinating hidden-object game is just made for those who crave for riddles and adventures. Mysterious disappearance of your uncle is only the beginning of a thrilling journey, during which you will explore pyramids, heart o
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Interactive Fiction (IF) fans will be pleased to hear that Craig Smith has released Frotz [App Store] for the iPhone through the iTunes App Store as a free download.
Interactive Fiction, better known as "text adventures" was a popular game genre in the '70s and '80s when computers were text-based or offered, at best, very limited graphical capabilities. The first text adventure, Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as ADVENT due to a six-letter filename restriction on the PDP-10 for which it was originally written and available [... Read more »
One of the games we spoke of in our recent WWDC games coverage was Kroll from Barcelona, Spain-based Digital Legends. A side-scrolling, 3D fantasy adventure game, Kroll takes full advantage of the iPhone's unique control system; players jump with a jerk of the iPhone, thanks to its accelerometer, and use touchscreen controls to activate weapons and otherwise move about the game world.
While Digital Legends is an award winning development house with PC, console, and smartphone games under its belt, the iPhone was a new platfrom for the team. Impressively, the demo shown during the WWDC keynote was put together in under two weeks.
With this first iPhone outing, the company is being particularly sensitive to its gaming audienc
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The latest in 3D iPhone gaming comes from developer Marco Giorgini. He has released a pre-alpha version of Kingdom Lores, a 3D fantasy adventure game based on an OpenGL ES rendering engine of his own design.
The game presents an over-the-shoulder view of the player's avatar in the 3D game world. On-screen controls are used to negotiate the terrain, do battle with enemies, collect treasure, etc. Both portrait and landscape orientations are supported and on-screen indicators keep the player aware of current health levels, selected weapons, etc.
The author indicates that Kingom Lores is and will remain a free game but he is uncertain as to whether it will appear in the iTunes App Store due to the fact that he has no Mac and, as s
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Adventure gamers of old will surely recall that some of the best adventures available were SCUMM titles. No, not a slanderous term, SCUMM (or Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) is a LucasArts scripting engine that was used for the creation of interactive graphical adventure games. And very good adventures, as it turned out.
Modern computers can play these games thanks to the ScummVM interpreter, and happily ScummVM has been ported to the jailbroken iPhone / iPod touch. As Gizmodo points out, the arrival of ScummVM to Apple's new mobile platform is really a marraige made in hea
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If squad-based first person shooters are your thing, StarByte's NEX [App Store] may just be the game you've been waiting for on the App Store– featuring a variety of different objectives, ammo types, and menacing aliens at every turn. But how does NEX stand up against the existing shooters for the iPhone?
Your movement in NEX is controlled either by using a on-screen D-Pad, the accelerometer, or a combination of the two. Without any way to adjust the sensitivity of the tilt controls, I found them to be far too touchy and bordering
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Mobila Interactive posted a brief video on YouTube tonight showing a very early build of Rise of the Triad for the iPhone. Originally developed by Apogee Software (now known as 3D Realms), Rise of the Triad was meant to serve as the sequel to Wolfenstein 3D.
With simple shoot everything that moves gameplay, it was released in 1995 and saw several re-releases before the source code was eventually released under the GNU General Public License. Since then fans have ported the game to nearly ever platform imaginable, and as of tonight the iPhone joins that list.
Here is the development video, also the developer notes the control scheme is just fo
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This evening we got tipped off on a strange video that appeared on YouTube showing a test build of a pretty convincing basic clone of Portal built in Unity running on an iPhone 3G:
It's unclear what the future of this project holds. Normally I would say producing something like this is the quickest way to get a cease and desist letter, but Valve has had rather unexpected reactions in the past to spin-off projects.
For instance, from the blog fan-made Portal prequel, Portal Prelude:
Yesterday, we got our first contact with the french community manager of Valve. Yes, Valve. The marvellous company that brought Portal and so much more to us for years
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Escalation Studios and id Software has just released the first original Doom title to the iPhone and iPod Touch platform: Doom Resurrection [App Store].
The Doom name carries with it an enormous 16 year legacy that results in some massive expectations for any adaptation. This iPhone version of Doom has been in development for over 6 months and utilizes many of the assets originally created for Doom 3. As a result, the game will look quite familiar to those who have played Doom 3.
Chris, Clive, Joseph, and several other extremely helpful ngmofos spent quite a bit of time this evening at the ngmoco event answering my endless array of questions about their in-development FPS game tentatively named LiveFire.
In the demo I saw today, four players sat around a set of iPod Touches all playing online via the hotel's WiFi. Since all the games in LiveFire are played online through ngmoco's matchmaking servers, Chris was directing people when to start their game to guarantee everyone got matched. After a lively countdown the players were thrown in to a heavily modified Quake 3 engine to play one of the most impressive online multiplayer experiences I've seen f
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Hands-On Mobile released their first person shooter Prey Invasion [App Store] tonight.
The world is under attack from an alien menace, but they've picked on the wrong man and his girlfriend. Tommy Hawk takes no prisoners as he plows through level after level of mutated aliens
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Pick Up and Play has released their online multiplayer first person shooter iFPS Online [link] into the App Store this evening.
iFPS Online features a full 3D FPS experience. Challenge your friends to a death match with up to four players. The first and only iPhone online multiplayer FPS. Host a game through your wifi; Join a game through your wifi or 3G!
The game offers online deathmatch with up to 4 players over Wi-Fi or a 3G connection, making it the first App Store game to do so.
Paramount's Shooter game has been released to the App Store for only $0.99 [link].
Shooter is one of the first true 1st person shooters to be released on the iPhone and iPod Touch. As Gunnery Sergeant Bob Lee Swagger, you must clear your name after being accused of an assassination attempt on the President. Stealthy pursuit, a steady hand and nerves of steel will allow you to eliminate those responsible.
Features listed include:
High Stakes Sniping Missions: Earn medals and rewards through the successful comp
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Hill Billy's developers must have noticed our eager fascination with their upcoming first person shooter for the iPhone. They sent us a note yesterday that their game has finally been submitted to the App Store and that they are now simply awaiting Apple's approval.
Readers may remember the impressive but strange gameplay video (embedded below) that they posted back in December.
The game premise is as follows:
You are Hill Billy: the world's larg
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Konami's Silent Hill is now available in the U.S. App Store [App Store].
Early impressions of the european version have been reported in the discussion thread.
The game is a first person shooter in which you must navigate a maze of corridors with a 6-shooter in hand. The game is set in a slow paced "creepy" setting and really delivers on atmosphere. Controls are reasonable with swipe gestures providing forward/backward and turning movements. Meanwhile, the accelerometer is used to allow for s
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After long delays, Phart Games's first person shooter Alien Mangle [App Store] finally hit the App Store late last week. For those who haven't been following the drama in our forums, the game started off as Zombie Mangle but was apparently delayed due to excessive gore. So it was rebranded with aliens, robot sheep and green blood and Alien Mangle was born and finally accepted by Apple.
The rather arbitrary premise of the game is that you must protect your ro
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The developers of iPhone first person shooter Hill Billy have released a new trailer for their upcoming game. We first posted a teaser video of this iPhone game back in November which was simply described as "a first person shooter that users the accelerometer for movements."
The new video shows more details of the gameplay, monsters (mostly mutant bunnies) and weapons. The game contains an odd collection of themes and creatures.
The primary goals is to rescue all the carrots (huh?) while slaughtering "weird creatures" (as the developer puts it). The fight scenes are particularly gory with blood splattering across your iPhone's screen.
Last night Zombie Mansion finally arrived in the App Store [link] after a prolonged approval process. Zombie Mansion was developed by Source IT software. The release of the title had been somewhat anticipated as it represents the first original first-person shooter (FPS) for the iPhone.
The $4.99 game places you in the middle of a zombie filled mansion which you must fight your way out.
Starting in Hell, you will manoeuver through the dungeons, the floors and finally the attic
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The long awaited release of the first true First Person Shooter has arrived. Cube [App Store] has finally made it into the App Store after a lengthy approval process.
Cube is an open source multiplayer and singleplayer first person shooter game built on an entirely new and very unconventional engine. Cube is a landscape-style engine that pretends to be an indoor FPS engine, which combines very high precision dynamic occlusion culling with a form of geometric mipmapping on the whole world for dynamic LOD for configurable fps &
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We promised to report back once we had more time with Blades of Fury [App Store], Gameloft's newly-released fighting game. We're happy to report, that against all odds, the virtual D-Pad and on-screen controls actually do allow you to pull off some pretty impressive combos filled with special attacks and suprisingly don't seem to hamper the gameplay at all.
The Blades of Fury thread on our forums is filled with people echoing the same uncanny impressions regarding the controls. I'm really not sure what kind of new virtual D-Pad technology Gameloft has pulled o
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Samurai: Way of the Warrior [$2.99] is simply one of the most original and entertaining iPhone hack-and-slash games to date.
The game has a storyline that is well incorporated throughout presented in comic book style cut scenes that honestly conveys a strong sense of adventure and bloodletting. You control the fate of Daisuke Shimada, the wandering samurai as he ventures through the countryside dealing with the villainous Lord Hattoro and his two henchmen Kumo and Orochi. Of course, they have a significant army to carry out their misdeeds, and let’s just
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In the outside chance that you don't find yourself mashing the check for updates button in iTunes as often as you check your email, here are a few game updates that have added some cool new features and fixes that have come out in the past few days. Videos may not reflect the most recent versions of the games.
Touch KO, $4.99 – Along with most of the first impressions on our forums, we also thought the difficulty level included in the initial release was far too easy in our review. Touch KO 1.1 brings some much needed bug fixes, the ability to skip through the slow motion replays, makes combos more powerful, but most importantly added a hard mode with new AI that is mu
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Chillingo has been teasing us for a few months now slowly releasing screenshots, interviews, and trailers for Touch KO [App Store].
The game was just released this afternoon and features an impressive control scheme, intense character customization, and a whole slew of upgrades to buy for your boxer.
We've just had a short time with the game (on an iPhone 3GS), but here are some first impressions. Starting the game out, Touch KO treats players to a brief tutorial that explains the controls. Touching the left or right side of the screen punches with tha
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At E3 we got a look at Gamevil's upcoming game in where fighting and special moves take precedence over the RPG storytelling elements found in Zenonia [App Store]. Like all Gamevil games, Hybrid: Eternal Whisper is a port of a popular Korean game that they're localizing to English and customizing for the iPhone interface.
From our preview of Hybrid: Eternal Whisper
The game is structured around 150 levels where you must fight off a number of combatants on each level. Backgrounds and environments differ across levels and different skills and actions are both learned and earned over the game. The game does carry
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Toy kite software released their first iPhone game at the iPhone Launch Party last night. The game is called iSamurai [$0.99] and offers players the chance to finally swing their iPhones like swords.
iSamurai is an accelerometer-based iPhone game that recognizes certain gestures as specific sword fighting attacks or blocks. The developer's video shows it well:
The game comes with both two player (WiFi) modes and single player modes. The single player mode is surprisingly well implemented and pits you up against a computer opponent who calls out their attacks (like Left strike
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The app brings the long running Resident Evil video game franche to the iPhone and iPod Touch. This installation of the game is based on a recently released computer animated movie and drops you into a 3rd person perspective horror shooter. The game lists the following features:
Explore Harvardville Airport, rescue survivors, unlock puzzles and battle an army of undead.
Use your in-game PDA to collect intel, manage inventory and access maps.
“Laser targeting” allows the players to make aimed accurate shots.
Backgrounds, character models and objects are all rendered in full 3D.
Tilt device to reload, shake iPhone/iPod
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Sure enough, HermitWorks has set their sites on Apple’s mobile gaming platform the iPhone, but their goal isn’t to enable armies of iPod-wielding Apple fans to play Quake III; instead, they’re “madly coding,” says Tofer, to port their own Space Trader to iPod and iPhone, hopefully in time to be released in June with the official iPhone App Store. “I’d love to have it by June; we’re just in a kind of porting frenzy right now.” Problem is, in order to be a part of Apple’s official offering, they’d need at least minimal support in the form of the official Apple SDK, which has been rather late in making the rounds. HermitWorks doesn’t want to be viewed as a group of
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The reason for the interest is that Funky Punch brings a new genre to the iPhone — a fighting game.
Set in an alternate universe where dancing recharges your energy, Funky Punch lives up to its name and is a solid addition to iPhone gaming.
The game is a reasonably straightforward 3D fighting game which uses on screen buttons to control the action. While I've been quite critical of touch screen buttons in the past, their use in Funky Punch seems natural and does not detract from the
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Digital Legends has, in just two weeks’ time, put together an amazing looking 3D fantasy adventure game called Kroll that uses OpenGL and touch controls. The company indicates that the iPhone’s rich control schemes and developer APIs makes for a better gaming experience than that of any other mobile gaming device. Digital Legends’ title will be available by September.
Kroll is a 3D-rendered side-scrolling fighter divided into three chapters, each of which includes three levels plus a boss battle. The game is controlled by touching six icons arrayed about the edges of the iPhone's screen. Said controls consist of left / right movement, left / rig
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The developer provides the following feature list:
KROLL will immerse gamers in amazing 3-D action with its groundbreaking technology built explicitly for iPhone touch screen with its full graphics capabilities.
Epic environments enhance the iPhone gameplay experience, with hectic fighting at the mountainside, inside molten magma mines, and high above active volcano in magical floating prison. To learn the secret behind the legend of KROLL, gamers must conquer mythic enemies and creatures.
Bash’n’Crush your way through nine hectic levels destroying ever increasing amount of enemy hordes and play through awesome cinematic boss battles.
iDracula invites players to lay down some monster smack–Van Helsing style.
It's a point, shoot and run affair — stop to bag the goodies, guns and power-ups but watch out for the werewolves and other bad guys.
While further details right now are scant, the game will be priced at $0.99 and is set to debut sometime in the next week. We're anxious to spend some
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Gameloft's much anticipated Assassin's Creed for the iPhone arrived in the App Store tonight. The game is priced at $9.99 and delivers a port of the Nintendo DS version.
A version of the game called Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles was later released for the Nintendo DS. The iPhone version appears to be a graphically enhanced port of the DS title that has adapted to the iPhone's touch screen.
How the iPhone community reacts to what seems to be the same essential game as the DS will be quite interesting. Some of the poor reviews of the DS version seemed to cite short gameplay (3-5 hours) and only a very loo
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TouchArcade was given the opportunity to speak with Adam Mechtley (pictured in yellow shirt to right) who is one of the developers responsible for the upcoming Touch KO boxing game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Adam provides some background on the game, details the game's features and controls, and provides some new screenshots in this exclusive interview.
TouchArcade: Tell us a little about yourselves. What is your history?
Adam: Matt (pictured in black shirt) and I both work full-time for Flashbang studious in Tempe, Arizona. We have done a couple of iPhone games but our focus is primarily on web games for o
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It's hard to describe the Madden series of games as a franchise anymore, they've been around so long it seems that a more appropriate way to describe the games would be the "Madden dynasty." The first Madden game appeared on the Apple II all the way back in 1989, it wasn't until Madden '94 that the real NFL teams were included, and sports gamers would have to wait another year until the real players were added. When you look back at the 20 years these games have been around,
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Backflip Studios' Paper Toss World Tour [
Konami, better known for its Metal Gear and Silient Hill series, has just released Power Pros Touch [
Last month we took a look at Naquatic's Touch Ski 3D, an iPhone touch-screen skiing game that we found to be a very well done, simple title with an interesting control mechanic. At both its initial $0.99 and $2.99 regular price, it represented a solid value and was a great ticket for on-the-go fun on the slopes.
As mentioned in our previous post, Tiger Woods PGA Tour is a golf game of the realistic, simulation sort as opposed to the more casual golf titles, such as one can readily find on the Nintendo Wii platform. If realism, as opposed to bouncy music, rainbow colors, and enlarged heads is your thing, then you're in EA's target audience on this one. (And that's not to say that the more festive variety of golf titles are to be discounted — we love Gameloft's Let's Golf, for instance.)
iPhone developer Naquatic has just released Touch Ski 3D [
We have come such a long way from Steve’s iPhone SDK announcement in late 2007. Even before the official SDK was released, developers were writing simple games. Simple games evolved in to pick up and play examples of gaming perfection like Flight Control [
Last week Cowboy Rodeo released an iPhone version of Digital Illusions' classic 1992 Amiga pinball game Pinball Dreams [
Pinball fans take note, Cowboy Rodeo has ported Digital Illusions' classic Amiga pinball game 
Bootant's flying game BiiPlane, which 
"It's like having Wii Tennis on your iPhone…"
Swedish game developer Resolution Interactive has released a preview of their forthcoming flight / action / sports hybrid Clusterball 2.
EA's missing link between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 popped up on the App Store this evening, promising a gripping storyline, the ability to unleash a torrent of firepower, and insider information information on upcoming characters in the Mass Effect universe.
Chillingo / Tetraedge recently released an iPhone port of the well reviewed island adventure Jules Verne's Return to Mysterious Island [
The upcoming iPhone port of mobile title
iPhone publisher Chillingo, who most recently brought us Vector Tanks, has a number of games "in the oven" right now. Among them is an iPhone conversion of the mobile 3D adventure The Quest.
French Mac development group Coladia is in the process of creating an iPhone version of their Mac release Secret of the Lost Cavern, a prehistoric point-and-click adventure set in 15,000 B.C.
For one day only–today, September 30–Artur Ostapenko's hidden-object adventure game The Stone of Destiny [
Interactive Fiction (IF) fans will be pleased to hear that Craig Smith has released Frotz [
The latest in 3D iPhone gaming comes from developer Marco Giorgini. He has released a pre-alpha version of Kingdom Lores, a 3D fantasy adventure game based on an OpenGL ES rendering engine of his own design.
At E3 we got a look at Gamevil's upcoming game in where fighting and special moves take precedence over the RPG storytelling elements found in Zenonia [
