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[iPhone/iPad] games: Your call dropped, use new thread
Lunker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The Brand-New All-Purpose Apple iThing Games Thread
(Financing Steve Jobs's private island retirement getaway, 99 cents at a time.)
Welcome to the jungle! That iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad you just bought has a ridiculous number of great games available for it on the App Store, but for every great one, you're going to find 10 shitty ones. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a dirty job, but that's what you have us for. I'm going to attempt to wrangle the general PA forum consensus on our favorite games on the App Store, but this is also a general spot for us to talk about our current obsessions, upcoming games and penny-pinching debate about spending $1.99 or waiting for a price drop.
A Note to iPad Owners
You are completely free to buy and enjoy any iPhone games that you wish, but note that upscaling the games to the iPad's larger screen makes most games look pretty janky, unless they have a pixely, blocky art style (games like Space Invaders Infinity Gene and Eliss look awesome on iPad).
Basic iThing Games Protocol
For those of you new to the iThing scene, be aware that discovering and buying games with it has a different rhythm and flow than with a regular handheld or console. Here are some loose ground rules for sucking the marrow out of your Apple whoredom:
Friend Lists for Online Networks
Kind soul Xaviar has started a a master list of PAer handles for iPhone's various online networks (OpenFeint, Plus+, Agon and Crystal). If you want some leaderboard chasing or other online connections, add your info here!
iPhone Games that PAers Generally Like
Here's a loosely organized list of games that people here enjoy. Search YouTube for videos of the titles in question, and games often have demo or free versions (usually marked with "Lite" in the name, so "Angry Birds Lite" is the free demo version of "Angry Birds"). If you have any additions you'd like to make, please post and give us your opinions! Crowdsourcing is the best way to discover great iPhone games.
Arcade/Action
Platformer
Puzzle/Casual
Strategy
RPG/Roguelike
Tower Defense
Adventure/Point-and-Click
Music/Rhythm
iPad Games that PAers Generally Like
(Financing Steve Jobs's private island retirement getaway, 99 cents at a time.)
Welcome to the jungle! That iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad you just bought has a ridiculous number of great games available for it on the App Store, but for every great one, you're going to find 10 shitty ones. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a dirty job, but that's what you have us for. I'm going to attempt to wrangle the general PA forum consensus on our favorite games on the App Store, but this is also a general spot for us to talk about our current obsessions, upcoming games and penny-pinching debate about spending $1.99 or waiting for a price drop.
A Note to iPad Owners
You are completely free to buy and enjoy any iPhone games that you wish, but note that upscaling the games to the iPad's larger screen makes most games look pretty janky, unless they have a pixely, blocky art style (games like Space Invaders Infinity Gene and Eliss look awesome on iPad).
Basic iThing Games Protocol
For those of you new to the iThing scene, be aware that discovering and buying games with it has a different rhythm and flow than with a regular handheld or console. Here are some loose ground rules for sucking the marrow out of your Apple whoredom:
1. Help me help you! Note that new games come out every day, often with little to no fanfare, and outside of a handful of websites that I've found, word of mouth is generally the best method I've found to discover new obsessions and infect others with your current ones. So if you've found a great new game, please let us know about it!
2. Prices are moving targets. The App Store is a crazy bargain bin, and prices fluctuate all of the time. There's a general ceiling of $9.99 on games, although so far only one game (Square Enix's Chaos Rings RPG) has broken past that, but prices can and will drop and rise without warning. It's very common for a game to release at an "introductory" 99 cents and then rise up to $2.99 or so after a week.
3. Traditional gaming sites are useless. The regular kinds of sites you visit for gaming news will likely ignore all but the highest-profile iPhone releases. So far my favorite resources are Touch Arcade and Slide to Play, but more often than not I discover games and hear reviews from forums like this.
4. Think tapas, not entrees. There are definitely iPhone games that can suck away dozens of hours of your life, but generally games on these platforms lend themselves to quick, arcadey, pick-up-and-play kinds of experiences. So for the price of even a budget-conscious DS game ($20), you can get 10 to 15 really great iPhone games that give you a huge variety of gameplay.
5. Shilling and bribing are encouraged. If you're a game developer who wants to let us know about an iPhone/iPad project, also feel free to post—just please be upfront about your role in the project, and have a thick skin about any criticism people have toward your work. Some free trial codes or other tchotchkes can't hurt, either!
2. Prices are moving targets. The App Store is a crazy bargain bin, and prices fluctuate all of the time. There's a general ceiling of $9.99 on games, although so far only one game (Square Enix's Chaos Rings RPG) has broken past that, but prices can and will drop and rise without warning. It's very common for a game to release at an "introductory" 99 cents and then rise up to $2.99 or so after a week.
3. Traditional gaming sites are useless. The regular kinds of sites you visit for gaming news will likely ignore all but the highest-profile iPhone releases. So far my favorite resources are Touch Arcade and Slide to Play, but more often than not I discover games and hear reviews from forums like this.
4. Think tapas, not entrees. There are definitely iPhone games that can suck away dozens of hours of your life, but generally games on these platforms lend themselves to quick, arcadey, pick-up-and-play kinds of experiences. So for the price of even a budget-conscious DS game ($20), you can get 10 to 15 really great iPhone games that give you a huge variety of gameplay.
5. Shilling and bribing are encouraged. If you're a game developer who wants to let us know about an iPhone/iPad project, also feel free to post—just please be upfront about your role in the project, and have a thick skin about any criticism people have toward your work. Some free trial codes or other tchotchkes can't hurt, either!
Friend Lists for Online Networks
Kind soul Xaviar has started a a master list of PAer handles for iPhone's various online networks (OpenFeint, Plus+, Agon and Crystal). If you want some leaderboard chasing or other online connections, add your info here!
iPhone Games that PAers Generally Like
Here's a loosely organized list of games that people here enjoy. Search YouTube for videos of the titles in question, and games often have demo or free versions (usually marked with "Lite" in the name, so "Angry Birds Lite" is the free demo version of "Angry Birds"). If you have any additions you'd like to make, please post and give us your opinions! Crowdsourcing is the best way to discover great iPhone games.
Arcade/Action
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LbLVoRDm4U]Bit Pilot:[/vidurl] A twin-stick shooter without the shooting; a dodger? Great trackball-esque controls, badass chiptunes and neat little unlockables. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr03CIfjK4I]Tilt to Live:[/vidurl] A great arcade pick-up-and-play game that uses tilt controls fantastically. Sort of plays like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2's Pacifism mode. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU_mEzgcC9Y]Espgaluda II:[/vidurl] A gorgeous, smooth port of the Cave shmup classic. A vertical bullet-hell shooter that will burn through your battery like crazy, but it's worth it. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShO9rtyIX-0]Space Invaders Infinity Gene:[/vidurl] Awesome reimagining of SI that plays more like a modern bullet-hell trance/electronic shoot-em-up. Tons of unlockables, killer soundtrack, great controls, the works. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmU42DYQrI]Space Miner: Space Ore Bust:[/vidurl] "Asteroids meets Diablo" is a fair description. Scratches the lootwhore itch with dozens of hours of play. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smdQE8OI2cE]Minigore:[/vidurl] This is a pretty by-the-books twin-stick shooter that's more than doubled in content due to free updates. Fun art style. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8--2Z9Z1H-8]Real Racing:[/vidurl] One of the first iPhone racing games to really make a splash; great graphics, perfect controls and AI all combined to make this one of the best iPhone racing games that still holds up today. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVEoI3FC-8k]Pac-Man Championship Edition:[/vidurl] A port of the sexcellent XBLA legend, the controls are a little finicky and some content is held behind paid DLC, but the core game is still worth a go and very addicting. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmcT8bh99HQ]Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars:[/vidurl] A full port of the DS/PSP game, plus you can use your iTunes library as a radio station!
Platformer
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_aB_ZkonGw]Edge:[/vidurl] An embattled blocky puzzle-platformer that pops off and on the App Store due to bullshit legal disputes. If it's up, grab it, because it's great. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MaK-shoqU]Spider: Secret of Bryce Manor:[/vidurl] A low-stress puzzle-platformer with plenty of secrets and really subtle, mature storytelling elements. Made by some of the people behind the original Thief! - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncqLdV_zNIM]Canabalt:[/vidurl] Play for free here to see what the deal is. I always think of this as a 99 cent game with two dollars' worth of polish. - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVowHErySnc]Soosiz:[/vidurl] Sort of a 2-D Mario Galaxy, plus the controls avoid any awkwardness by abolishing the D-pad. - Hook Champ
Puzzle/Casual
- Peggle: It's freaking Peggle. Great as ever.
- Bookworm: Another of PopCap's casual classics that makes the port to iPhone really well.
- Angry Birds: A physics-based fling puzzler that has you knocking down enemy structures with ... angry birds.
- Drop7: A clever mathy spin on the block-dropping motif
- Eliss: Still one of my favorite uses of mulitouch; gets really hard midway through, but the BitGenerations-esque aesthetic never gets old.
- Words with Friends: Asynchronous online multiplayer not-quite-Scrabble that can either be played for free with in-game ads or without for a couple bucks. Has Push notifications to tell you when it's your turn. Cheaper than the real Scrabble!
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W3D-f7edv8]Unify:[/vidurl] Kind of like playing two games of Tetris simultaneously, with the pieces falling into each other. - Flight Control: Trace lines and lead airplanes to their landing strips without crashing them. So simple and stupid, but yet it's perfect for the platform and spawned a whole genre of line-tracing games.
- Word Ace / Card Ace / Card Ace Blackjack: Word Ace is a great mashup of Texas Hold 'Em and Scrabble, while Card Ace is straight Hold 'Em and Blackjack is, well, blackjack. These online multiplayer-focused games are 100 percent free, though you can make donations to the developers (Self Aware Games) for extra chips and plain ol' generosity.
Strategy
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJWejVTspYQ]Battle for Wesnoth[/vidurl] - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0_ANx6Mh2k]Civilization Revolution[/vidurl]: Port of the DS version, really well-suited for the screen.
RPG/Roguelike
- Chaos Rings: If you can stomach the $12.99 price, you'll uncover an excellent RPG that feels like a lost PS1 classic. Square-Enix's most impressive iPhone endeavor yet. An iPad version is expected to come down the pipeline.
- Final Fantasy 1 & Final Fantasy 2: Well-done ports of the "updated" PSP ports of these ancient RPG classics.
- Puzzle Quest: The ubiquitous Puzzle-RPG hybrid fares extremely well in the iPhone port.
- 100 Rogues: A roguelike that I don't know too much about, but has been recommended by genre fans.
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5cuizdJ-Kk]Sword of Fargoal:[/vidurl] By far the most approachable roguelike, Sword of Fargoal is a classic dungeon crawler with randomly generated levels which provide nearly infinite replay value. Great as an "intro" to the genre. - Sword & Poker / Sword & Poker 2: Think Puzzle Quest, but replace the Bejeweled gem-swapping with creating hands of poker.
- Zenonia / Zenonia 2: It's a grindfest, but Zenonia still seems to be the benchmark that most action-RPGs are compared to. The game will take you around 40 hours to complete, not including the multiple character classes.
Tower Defense
- Plants vs. Zombies: Tower defense with the infamous PopCap style, polish and heroin injected in. Missing the minigames and endless modes from the PC/iPad versions, but still highly recommended.
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD1ugDc8Bj0]Geodefense Swarm:[/vidurl] A brutal tower-defense game with Geometry Wars-ish graphics and no mercy.
Adventure/Point-and-Click
- [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPElfbumRsk]The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition:[/vidurl] An excellent port of the PC and XBLA versions of this wonderful classic remake. Look, a three-headed monkey! - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqfFsYpoFI0]Beneath a Steel Sky:[/vidurl] - [vidurl=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zYRx74JVe8]Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:[/vidurl] The over-the-top awesome DS game gets a great port. Graphics look a little sharper too.
Music/Rhythm
- Beat It!: A true "music" game in the sense that you're tasked with listening to a beat and then replicating it using a simplified Pro Tools/Reason/Ableton Live-ish sequencer.
iPad Games that PAers Generally Like
- Words with Friends HD : This excellent not-quite-Scrabble game plays exactly like the iPhone version, just with a big, gorgeous board in front of you. You can use the same login between the two versions.
- Plants vs. Zombies HD : The flower-growing, zombie-killin' classic in all of its glory. Has the mini-games and extra content missing from the iPhone version.
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At the same time, however, you have been personally responsible for 20 to 30 dollars worth of app purchases for me in the last fiscal quarter.
So good and bad, I guess. :P
Misery loves company; the only way I can move beyond my sickness is to infect other people with it.
I know that a lot of people like Angry Birds, but I'm trying the Lite and it's just not doing anything for me; I'm not really good at physics puzzlers, though, so it's really just me, I'm sure.
EDIT: Oh, god, I almost forgot to post about a bunch of cool shit that just hit:
Hector: Badge of Carnage is a point-and-click, which means I'll likely buy it in a few weeks. This is "Episode 1," for $3.99:
A new point-and-click!
The sequel to Hook Champ, Super QuickHook, has been submitted for approval, which means it'll drop soon:
Official trailer
GamEvil's Soccer Superstars (think Baseball Superstars) recently released, for $4.99:
The Animes!
And I'm not a fan, but I know a lot of board-game aficionados will shit their pants now that Carcacassone ($4.99) is out!
Gameplay vid
Much love to be had for this game.
I can't speak to the HD version, but I have the iPhone one and it's exactly what you're looking for. I'm not a huge lootwhore guy, so I can't really say how it falls on a quality spectrum, but it's totally about grinding dungeons, picking up gear with different colored-titles and buffs, and managing skill point trees. There are two control setups, and the touch-based one feels completely Diablo-esque to me.
Re: Me getting you to spend money: I'm really sorry! :P In the release notes for Carcassone, it specifically says that the iPhone version is going to get a free update to become an iPhone/iPad universal release. It's $4.99 now and will go up to $9.99 once it goes universal, so if they're to be believed, you should definitely buy it now.
Oh god I must have this. Was not aware of the carcasonne game. Thanks for the info on Dungeon Hunters.
Related to board games, has anyone played the Small World game? I've never played it and wondered if the iPad game would be a cheap way to get it for my wife and I to play. Is it easy for the less strategic player (my wife) to get into? She loves Carcasonne, Lost Cities, Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan but isn't necessarily "good" at them.
/gurgle
/edit It's iPhone only but looks fine and I think plays better blown up on the iPad
I've only played the physical board game itself, so maybe it's streamlined and easier on an iPad, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It is considerably more strategic than all of those games you mentioned. At it's heart, it is a wargame. You pick your army which is usually 6 - 10 tiles. Then you run amok in the world trying to beat up the other players and come out with territories that give you the most money. The following turns you can either try for more territory with the army you have, or pass and pick up a new race to start over next turn. That's the basic feel for the game, but it's obviously more complicated than that.
It's still not what I'd call an overly 'heavy' game, and I can play it with my kids just fine. But to relate it to the more family-friendly, casual games that you listed, I would say it's not in that same category.
I think you can go to Days of Wonder's website and see the rulebook, or a sample turn. Also, search Small World and "Board Games with Scott" (or "Tom Vasel") on YouTube. You should get a good review from either of them.
i have it and enjoy it. it's basically a low-slung diablo clone. getting used to the touch-screen joystick is kinda hard for me, but your mileage may vary. it has fairly primitive 3d graphics, fairly simple gameplay, etc. Probably worth the few bucks it costs if you like this kind of game and want to doodle around on your ipad.
personally, i prefer the more puzzle-y/ strategy-ish kind of games on the ipad.
Wesnoth is a decent (and the only i think) SRPG. It's like $1.
Strategery is a decent risk-ish kind of game, and
Gun Wars is just about the same thing.
Fieldrunners is a fantastic tower-defense game. Really slick
Plants vs. Zombies is great.
Domination is full-on Risk and the only real down-side of it is that it's a little overdeveloped and the UI is a little tedious as a result.
hmm.. I'll post more when I grt back home to my ipad. I'm glad we have a thread for this now.
Please chime in with iPad specific recommendations, as I'm a lax iPad owner and generally haven't bought many games. :P I leave my Wi-Fi model at home, whereas the iPhone goes with me everywhere.
Also, Carcassonne is awesome! Beautiful art, excellent UI, and a quirky sense of humor with the tutorials. The Solitair mode is really fun too. Looks great at 2X on the iPad too. I haven't played online yet, but as long as the notifications work, it'll be even more amazing.
i will do so! i don't have an iPhone, so i'm really only planning on sticking to the "HD" or iPad-specific games. the iPhone upscaling is serviceable but kinda ugly.
An added AI for single player would be awesome and worth the investment even if she doesn't play. Is this info about a planned single player mode on their site somewhere?
I'm sorely disappointed in how terrible pretty much everything looks upscaled, but both Eliss and Space Invaders Infinity Gene look fantastically great because they already have a pixel art style. There's a lite version of Infinity Gene, so if you like shmups it's super-highly recommended. I've also heard Espgaluda II looks good on iPad in that blurry, Dreamcasty kind of way.
I also like Flight Control HD a lot—it ends up feeling quite different from the iPhone version because of the much larger play field.
Likely. I saw it in the release notes for the latest version.
I guess to explain myself further, I'm saying the games he plays are more family friendly, whereas this is beat each other up. There's no playing nice and hope for the right thing to come your way. In fact, the only randomness is the final die roll and the order the races come up. Everything else is pure strategy. Not saying it is deep strategy, but you have to think about it. Sure you can fumble your way through a game, but an experienced player will continually mop up the inexperienced every time.
It's made even worse because the money is also victory points, and people often don't do the math to figure out the best purchase and when to call it quits. I've seen people lose money on turns because they didn't consider the outcome of taking whatever race they wanted.
No, this isn't Caylus, Puerto Rico, Power Grid, or even Dominion, but it is based on a Euro style wargame (Vinci, just without the fantasy elements), and it doesn't fit well with Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Lost Cities. That doesn't mean you can't like it and all of these other games, just saying they aren't really comparable at all.
Ingenious
Money
Robot Master
Keltis Oracle
Knights of Charlemagne
Poison
Topas
And a couple puzzle games designed for the iPhone, Monumetal and Roto.
A few other non-Knizia games:
Roll Through the Ages
Blokus
Zooloretto
Mü
Wish it was easier to find these Euro style games in the store. Just searching for Board Games will get you the usual Monopoly, Battleship, The Game of Life, etc.
I liked the free game enough to go for the paid version and it was well worth it. For one, it automatically saves your game when you quit, whereas IIRC the free version just ends the game if it's interrupted. I think you get more ways to tweak options, too, so that even if you're playing the classic RISK world map you can alter the progression of bonus card reinforcements and tweak the way initial deployment works.
The downloadable maps add a lot of life to the game as well. Some play similarly to classic RISK and are just a good change of scenery, like a Europe map and an Italy map. Others are different enough to be more like mods or scripted scenarios, like a US warzone that has both territories and cities to fight over, and specific avenues for invading the country; or various historical battle scenarios such as WWII Europe or Pacific, Dark Ages, or Earth vs Mars. There's also gimmick maps available which are fun for a lark, like an inverse classic RISK world map that has you only fighting over ocean territories with all land off-limits.
That's true. It's a lot more confrontational than those other games. I've found it to be light hearted enough though that it doesn't cause fights. Tigris and Euphrates tends to get pretty heated in my house.
You can play with up to 5 people with one iPhone/iPod/iPad.
i like the big character art, but the sprites and animation could use work. plays like fire emblem so i am enjoying it. if they released an actual fire emblem game i would pay full cash dollars for that
also phoenix wright on the ipad is a very fun experience. i like the trials themselves more than finding evidence, but talking to witnesses is fun too
Other than that, hi5! I'll post my iPad greatest hits sometime this weekend.
hold the fucking phone
Phoenix Wright is on the app store?
Any turn based rpg really. I bet it could run ff9
Good OP, Lunker. Do you want me to PM the 4.0 details at some point?
Chaos Rings has a nice PS1 RPG vibe.
The free edition of LUX has been pretty fun so far, and Carcassonne is going to be getting an iPad update soon even though it looks good enough on its own.
edit: I hope Lucas Arts gets wind of the iPad because they could really do amazing things just porting their old games over to it
Also, Angry Birds? Thanks for killing hours of my week.